Ecclesiastes 7-9 - Pondering the Paradoxes of Life
Tom Shrader explores the paradoxes of life from Ecclesiastes, examining how good people often suffer while bad people prosper, how winners don't always win, and how wisdom is often unrecognized. He emphasizes that life requires 'instrument flying' - trusting God's sovereignty when circumstances don't make sense from our limited perspective under the sun.
“Everything that happens in your life, my life, our life, is either caused by or allowed by God.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Reflections From the Top of the Heap (2007)
Recorded: June 21, 2007
Duration: 35 min
Themes: faith, trust, suffering, wisdom, fairness, sovereignty, obedience, meaning, questioning gods fairness, experiencing injustice, struggling with disappointment, mature believer, facing lifes paradoxes, seeking understanding, dealing with confusion, wrestling with faith
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 7:13-14, Ecclesiastes 8:14, Ecclesiastes 9:1-3, Ecclesiastes 9:11, Ecclesiastes 9:13-16
Theological Themes: providence, gods sovereignty, faith seeking understanding, theodicy, biblical wisdom, sanctification, divine mystery, trust in god
Full Transcript
Open your Bibles, if you would, please, to the book of Ecclesiastes. Again, I speak for me. I hope it reflects how you feel about it. But I absolutely love this study and I've really enjoyed it. So much so that I went to Frank Switzer at Arcadia and said, I'd love to, because they do a Wednesday night study and Frank does it. That's a lot of work for Frank. I said, I'd be happy to come in there and do Ecclesiastes. So we're going to do that the end of August, first of September at Arcadia for six weeks. I'm so into this book.
This is basically the introduction to the day. Life just seems so messed up. And so I'm going to use the word unfair. It seems like if you're a kid, one of the first phrases you learn as you get a little bit older is that's not fair.
My girls, we had a deal. They could stay with us as long as they wanted. The only thing was, if you were in our house, you still had to play by our rules. I'm not going to let you come in whenever you want. And I'm not going to put myself through the agony of that. I don't think Sarah liked it. When she turned 21, she moved out, built a house, financed it herself and figured it out, which is pretty strong.
But I always tried with the girls, once they reached an age where you could dialogue, I would try to go, here's the decision and you can challenge it, with dignity and appropriately. And we would discuss it. And there were times when you couldn't reason your way through it. And at the end of it, I would give them what we were going to do. And they would say, that's not fair. Why are we going to do it that way? And very, very rarely, but firmly, I would say, because I said so.
The Nature of Life's Paradox
Now, I hate that as an answer, because I said so. Here's what I've discovered. I go to God and I'm looking around and I'm going, that's not fair. And He gives me this book and it's a whole bunch of pages. And He says, here's my reasoning. And I get through and I get to the end of it. And I say, that's not fair. And He says, well, we're going to do it because I say so. He's God.
So what we're talking about today is what we call a paradox. On your outline, we describe a paradox this way. When you have a statement or an event that seems to be contrary to common sense, and yet it's true, you have a paradox. And this book, the nature of the book of Ecclesiastes, just addresses the paradox of life.
Because what Solomon is saying, week one, volume one, issue one, is life is meaningless under the sun. So you're going to look at stuff and it's not going to make sense to you. Solomon doesn't conclude because it's meaningless under the sun, life is meaningless. He concludes life is very meaningful when I get a view outside of that and I get God's view.
Defining Faith in the Midst of Paradox
So here's a depth. So those of you that take notes, here's a note time. So here's how we define faith. Seeing the world, and that would imply everything in it, as God sees it, and acting obediently.
Travis and I were just talking, I'm a big vacation guy. I mean, by this time of year, I got next year's vacation figured out. Well, I got nothing this year. Now, traditionally, we would take a trip to Northern California. And one year, I'm talking to a gentleman and he said, are you going to Northern California again? And I said, yeah, we are. And he said to me, I have a plane, I'll fly you guys up.
And I said, well, I don't do Piper Cubs very well. I'm not a small plane guy. He said, well, it's not a small plane. And I said, well, I like to make sure the pilot is current with his credentials. And he said, oh, I've got like 500 million hours of flying. He was an old America West pilot.
So I went home and I said to Susan, we got a guy that's going to fly us up to Monterey. That'll get us where we want to go. She said, well, I don't like that. And I said, well, I don't like it either. But we're going to do it. And if we die, we'll all die together. So let's do it.
Trusting God When We Can't See
So we're flying up. We take off out of Gateway. We're flying up. It's a day like this, except it's August. So it's 110. We're flying up and we vector and we maneuver and we get all around. And we get out over the ocean and it starts to get cloudy.
And now we're getting to Monterey and it's thick. It's like you put a bag over your head. And I said, you know where we are? He said, yeah. And I said, wow. And he said, we're going to start to descend. And I'm watching this altimeter and this thing's going down and down and down. And I can't see anything. It's solid cloud. You can't see anywhere.
And it's going 3,000 feet, 2,500 feet, 2,000 feet, nothing. I mean, I can't see a thing. And I said, when do we abort this thing? He said, 350 feet. If we can't see the runway at 350 feet, we'll stop. Man, that's not very far. That's a football field.
1,250 feet, 1,000 feet. And I'm in the co-pilot seat. It's strictly honorary. I have no skill. And I'm looking and I said, man, I don't see anything. 750 feet, 500 feet, and you can't see a thing. And at 375 feet, we pop through and right there's the runway. I mean, it was unbelievable.
Here you go. From my perspective, it's instrument flying. The book of Ecclesiastes is instrument flying your way through life. When it doesn't make sense and you can't see it, God says, I'll show you. You got to trust. I mean, that's that whole, I don't know anything about instrument flying, but it seemed like it would be a pretty scary proposition. But lots of experience and lots of trust.
And when we don't know what's going to happen and we don't know when it's going to happen and we don't know how it's going to happen, God says, trust me.
The First Unfairness: People Don't Get What They Deserve
So let's work our way through these. And they overlap. They don't dissect clearly, but we're fine with that. The first one is it seems like everybody should get what they deserve, but they don't. There's a verse that we kind of passed over a couple weeks ago. Chapter 7, verse 13.
God's Good Even in Adversity
Consider the work of God. In the day of prosperity, be happy. In the day of adversity, consider. That's a very strong word—ponder, think about, contemplate. Consider that God made one as well as the other.
It's so interesting. We scream "that's not fair" in the midst of adversity, but we rarely do in the midst of prosperity.
Those of you that are old timers know when my daughter, Sarah, was a sophomore in high school, it was football season, and she was cheering and they had a game up in Globe or Miami or somewhere. They're driving back and she's with another girl. They're in a car on a frontage road in Price. They're at Price in University, and the light's green—it's a Friday night. Three young men who'd been drinking are in a pickup truck, come through the intersection and T-bone them. Sarah at the time was 100 pounds, and she's wrapped into this car.
That afternoon, for the only time ever in our marriage, Sandy and Susan—one of them—we left town together. We're at the airport and I'm taking Susan to the airport. She's going to see her mom. I'm going to go to a men's conference. She said, "I'm uncomfortable with this." I said, "Nothing's going to happen. Nothing's going to happen."
The Call That Changes Everything
I'm in bed. It's about one in the morning. "Tom, there's a phone call." Well, that's not Publisher's Clearinghouse. I know that. So they gave me all that detail. I said, "What should I do?" They said, "You ought to come down. She's in really bad shape."
So we get to Black Canyon City and the phone rings. They said, "Listen, she's had a brain seizure. She's in trouble." So I get there and she's laying out on a slab. They explained to me what's going on. In about another half hour, there had to be 100 high school kids invading this hospital.
I called Susan and I said, "Here's what happened." She said, "Well, I knew this was going to happen." I said, "Okay, well, that's not helpful. Come on home."
She was really—I mean, those first hours were really bad. Then by Sunday, it was clear she's going to be okay. Her jaw was broken, so it's wired shut and a plastic surgeon was working on her face. She was all beat up. She had glass in her hair forever.
A Sunday Teaching Moment
So on Sunday afternoon, I'm going to church to teach. We're in the Gospel of John. I figured people were surprised I was going to teach. I thought, "Well, what else would I do? That's what I do."
I'm walking in with my Bible and my notes. I had three people say to me, "I hear Sarah's getting better. God is good." By the third time, it had me so frustrated that I got up—it's always effective when you can do it—and said, "I got a message prepared, but I'm going to set it aside. I want to do a one-off." I did a message that we titled, "God is Good Even If She Dies."
God's not good because you got the outcome you wanted. God is good. It doesn't go the way we want. When things don't go the way we want them, we scream "that's not fair." But rarely do we do that when there's prosperity.
When Prosperity Comes
As I recall, if it's not the biggest deal I ever did, it's the second biggest deal I ever did. I'm going to give it to you. This is how it happened.
It's about 12:30 on a weekday. So everybody's out eating. I'm at my desk. Out comes the most important person in my business career, Jim Wentworth. Jim comes out and he said, "Schrage, can you call this guy? He needs to rent some space." I said, "Sure." He said, "You got to call him now. This is important." I said, "I can handle this."
So I call the guy. He is at 24th Street and Highland. Do you remember what was there in the old days? The DeVry Institute. So I go in and he said, "We're dead. We got no space. We need 12,000 square feet. Can you find me 12,000 square feet?" I said, "You got your guy."
So I went out. There was nowhere to go—you got to hit rewind. It's 1983, maybe. There's nowhere to go. There's only one place to go. Town and Country was closing the food court.
Making the Deal Happen
I went to the management at Town and Country. I said, "I need 12,000 square feet. Can I get 12,000 square feet in the food court?" The guy said, "No. Got to take 15." I said, "Okay, let me clear something up here. You'll pay me? Because I don't want to go through this and not get paid." He said, "Absolutely." I said, "Then signing this shouldn't be a problem." So he signed a little commission agreement.
I go back to DeVry. The guy said, "Okay, I've been thinking about this. We probably need 20,000 square feet." I said, "We can get it." So we go through all that.
DeVry's owned by Bell and Howell. They're in Chicago. So being the perceptive broker that I am, I said, "This is not very functional for DeVry. They ought to sell that piece. Market's starting to move off Camelback."
The Big Sale
So I go to the guy. He said, "I don't know. Call this guy in Chicago. Here's his number, his direct line." I call him, tell him, give him the whole story. He said, "8.8 million." Now, the reason I remember that—it's 8.8 acres. So that's a million dollars an acre in 83. I said, "Okay, I need to get paid on this." He said, "We won't pay more than 6%." I said, "Okay, I can work with 6%."
So I call a guy who Wentworth told me to call. The guy said, "We're interested. I got to tell you, here's our one thing. We're all cash buyers." I said, "We can work with this. I can work with all of these." So I go back. The guy at DeVry said, "Perfect. We'll come out. We'll make the deal."
Now, there's another piece here, isn't there? DeVry's got to go somewhere. So I call him and tell him, "You need to go up north." So we go up and find this piece.
Here—it's a long way, but I wanted you to feel that. There's a lease. There's a sale. There's another sale. And there's some other stuff that came out of it. All I did was return the phone call.
Here's what I want you to see. I did not sit at my desk and say, "That's not fair. That's not fair. I didn't do anything. That's not fair. I don't deserve this. Jim, take it. Give it to Clark. Clark will do it. Give it to somebody else."
No, nothing's fair. God gives us exactly what we deserve.
Life's Fundamental Unfairness
It seems in chapter 8, verse 14, there's a futility which is done on earth. And it's this: There are righteous men to whom it happens according to their deeds of the wicked. And on the other hand, there are evil men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. Here you go. Why do bad things happen to good people? There are people that seem perceptively good, and bad things seem to happen to them. There are people that seem extraordinarily wicked, and they just march along. They're the president of the country club. They're the Rotary guy.
Here's Ecclesiastes 8:14 from The Message: "Here's something that happens all the time and makes no sense at all. Good people get what's coming to the wicked. Bad people get what's coming to the good. I tell you, this makes no sense. It's smoke." This doesn't make any sense to me.
The Illusion That Good Should Triumph
Here's a subtlety. It's the second one: Good people should succeed over bad people. Chapter 9, verses 1, 2, and 3. It seems like winners should win, and losers should lose, and that I should succeed and be happy.
Here's what Solomon says in chapter 9, verse 1: "For I have taken all that's to my heart to explain the righteous men and wise men that their deeds are in God's hand. Man does not know whether it will be love or hate or anything that awaits him. It's the same for all. There's one fate of the righteous and the wicked. For the good, for the clean, for the unclean." And that is, verse 3, last sentence, we die.
I'm a big Augusta guy. I mean, I'm a tradition. I like certain things same times of the year. This is - I'm not exaggerating - my favorite week of the year, obviously for golf, but sports. So I'm watching all the Augusta stuff. It's impossible to look at this and not wonder how that's going to feel for Jack on the first tee today when he gets up there to hit the ball. And I assume Gary too. And what's missing? There's no Arnie. And you see those pictures of Arnie when he's winning in '58 and '60 and '62. And he's so there. And he's got that smile that just brings you in. And I look at that and it's so strong. And I can't connect that with the Arnie who last year didn't even hit a ball. And this year's dead.
The Relentless Reality of Death
That's what Solomon's saying. We're hung up on this side of death. And Solomon is saying you're making the judgment too soon. Good, bad. It doesn't matter. It doesn't make any difference. Ultimately, and obviously this makes sense in the context of Easter, the wages of sin is death for everybody.
Yesterday, I got a text from a friend saying his daughter had a baby. So he's a grandpa for the first time. Five minutes later, I get a text from a guy saying my dad just passed away. It's the cycle of life. You can't stop it.
I have just started and who knows how far I'll go with this. I've decided that I'm going to study the topic of aging. And so I've immersed myself - and this is the way I do it - in reading on aging. I mean, I'm reading and reading and reading. And here's the one thing I've figured out: It's coming. And I should have figured that out before I read the first book. But it's coming and it's relentless. And it looks just like life, a little bit different for everybody else. But you can't avoid it.
Winners Don't Always Win
Solomon has an interesting point here in the third point. It seemed like winners should win and losers should lose, but they don't. Ecclesiastes 9, verse 11: "I saw under the sun" - so there's that horizontal view - "that the race is not to the swift, the battle to the warrior." He said, here you go. It seems like the fastest horse should win. The best team should win. It seems like that.
Next year, it'll probably be in June, is my 50th high school reunion. And I'm so excited to go and to see the homecoming queen. Who, by this point, is probably easier to walk over than around, is my guess. And the stud athlete. And the guy that can't miss, most likely to succeed. And then there'll be the geeky guy that you were stuffing his head in the toilet. And you're going to say, "Can I park your car, Mr. Gates?" And I mean, it just doesn't work this way.
I love this verse. In my old days - I don't want to say consumed, because that sounds like it makes me sound like a derelict. But I spent a lot of time at Turf Paradise. I loved Turf Paradise. I loved horse racing. It's the most ego gratifying. You buy a stock, you have to wait a quarter or two or three, you know. You bet on a race, and in two minutes, you know if you're right or not. And you're betting against everybody else there. So when you win, you can kind of puff out your chest. And that's pari-mutuel wagering.
A Trip to Del Mar
Well, I hadn't been to the track in a long time. So a couple of years ago, we're at Del Mar in July. So if you've ever been, it's like the most beautiful track. Bing Crosby was the founder. Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz used to race horses down there. That's a great trip. So I'm in a liquor store getting a Diet Coke. And I see a racing form. And I thought, "Well, I'll just pick that up. I haven't seen a racing form in a while." So I pick it up.
How many of you have ever read a racing form? The new racing forms have a lot of information we didn't have. So I go home and I'm working my way through this form. And I thought, "Well, I'm going to go. I think I'll go over to the track and just see what it's like."
And in the form, there's always, for every race, there's a - every race day, there's a best bet. So they'll have five handicappers and they pick the horses they think will win the race. And then there's the best bet, the best of the best. This is the one that's going to go off at one to two, one to one. We would call it in the betting
You Can't Predict Life
Term, it's a lock. They pick one best bet each day. For the year I was there, July 16th, the best bet was Librarian Freighter—finished fourth. The 17th, best bet was Fleet's Design—finished second. On the 18th, best bet was Parched—finished seventh. On the 19th, the best bet was Dice Affair—finished dead last. Here's what Solomon's saying: you can't predict it.
Let me take that metaphor—you can't handicap life. It doesn't go the way you think it's going to go. I go to bed every night at eight o'clock. Last night I had a Little League game, first pitch 7:30, so that's a little tough for me. But I couldn't sleep. I got home, Sandy's in bed, and I thought, well, I'm going to watch. So I'm watching a mock NFL draft.
If you're not a sports fan, I'll tell you what I'm watching. This is a make-believe aspiration of what might happen in the draft. I mean, you clearly have nothing to do at this point. And then when they're done, they do a little five-minute segment on the biggest draft busts of all time—the guys that couldn't miss. He's going to succeed. And what Solomon is saying, and He wants you and me to get, is you can't handicap this thing called life. It looks like it's going to be that, but it's not.
When Life Gets Tough, Check the Instrument Panel
So you've got to look at the instrument panel, because here's what's going to happen when that starts to happen to you, time after time after time. Your body's wearing out, and your feet begin to hurt, and your kid is getting divorced, and your mom has got Alzheimer's. It's a tough life.
When it happens, you're going to flip to "that's not fair." And Solomon is saying, that's when you need to go to the instrument panel and start looking at the instruments and go, "I know it's fair. God's flying this," just like me flying in a Monterey. I had no control. It was all in front of me, but I didn't know what to do with it.
God is saying, "Tom, I got this baby under control. It's not going to go the way you'd like it, necessarily, but it's going to go the way I want it to go."
Everything Is Either Caused by or Allowed by God
Here's the powerful statement that's so familiar to you—and my fear is it's so familiar to us that we lose the power of this—that everything that happens in your life, my life, our life, is either caused by or allowed by God.
I have, not intentionally, just because of life at the Masters and a lot of reading I'm doing, I haven't watched hardly any news. And I turned on the news last night, and it's a mess. I mean, we've still got a nut in Syria and a nut in North Korea, and our new strategy is to convince the Chinese to deal with the North Koreans. Not historically been very successful. Everything's out of whack, and you're going to go crazy.
And here's something I found. I thought the older I'd get, the easier it would be to adjust to this, and it's not. It's even harder, because I'm dealing with all that uncertainty, plus the inevitability of my hands don't work, my feet don't work. And God's saying, "That's okay, Tom. The guys may be bad guys, and it may look like they're winning, but they're not going to get away with this."
Honor Those Who Serve Others
Let me make the last point, and then we'll get you out of here. People should honor those who serve other people. It's Ecclesiastes 9:13-16. I read from The Message:
"One day I was observing how wisdom fares on this earth. I saw something that made me sit up and take notice. There was a small town with only a few people in it. A strong king came, mounted an attack, building trenches, attacking the posts around it. There was a poor but wise man in that town whose wisdom saved the town. But He was promptly forgotten. He was only a poor man. All the same, I still say that wisdom is better than muscle, even though the wise poor man was treated with contempt and soon forgotten."
I think it's right that as I look at life, the quality or characteristic that's becoming more and more and more and more attractive to me and valuable is wisdom. I'm in a lot of conversations about millennials and old people and all this stuff. That's the problem, right? If you knew then what you know now—but you don't. But it's available to you. It's the wisdom to see God's in the middle of it.
God's Plan Is Always Right
Sandy and I were talking last night about something—doesn't matter what it was. And she said, "I would have never picked this plan. But you can see now this was the right way for things to happen. And I didn't do it. God did it." That's what Solomon is saying to you and me over and over and over again. It feels like it's been His message all through this book.
You can't handicap life. You can't fix it. Talked to a guy the other day, and He's got some problems with His kid, adult kid, mid-30s. And He wants to run in and fix it. And He's going, "I can't. I can't fix it. I can't control it. I can't buy it."
And if you're one of those men or women who succeeded in life this far to buy your way into or out of, to cleverly calculate your way into or out of, you can't do it. Ultimately, there's this moment of death when you're face to face with God. And this is next week—spoiler alert. And this is next week: everything will be judged.
Everything Matters Because Everything Will Be Judged
So I come back to this, and we'll grind this home next week. Rather than say, "Meaningless, meaningless, none of it matters," Solomon is saying, "No, at the end, everything matters because everything will be judged by God."
There's a guy by the name of Philip Ryken. And Ryken is one of my favorite commentators to read. And I like Him because it's simple. And He's always got a list. I like lists. Five best places to eat, five restaurants, whatever it is. And so Ryken writes a commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes. And I didn't see it until Tuesday. And the title is "Why Everything Matters." And I know that's where He's going with this.
So if you're new today, or you've now been with us for seven weeks, you're feeling pretty worn out. You're feeling pretty beat up. Well, next week is the antidote to that.
Next week is that vitamin, that nutrition, that protein drink that gets you through the rest of life. Because I'm starting to see things now. And that's something—when you have that moment, and we have them in whatever it is, where you go, "I get it."
We were last night at the ball game. And it was kind of cool for me because Yale was playing. And it was like the old Yale last night. He was good last night. There's a guy there who I said to Tyler, "I should know that guy." And he explained to me who he was. He was a cornerback with ASU.
When Natural Talent Feels Unfair
He said, "Have you seen his kid play flag football?" And I said, "No." And he said, "He's unbelievable. He's seven. He's unbelievable." And he said, "He gets out, and he gets out on the flat. And it's one-on-one. And he can take it and plant. But he doesn't—he can push off."
So I said to Tyler—and Tyler tends to get carried away—I said, "Is he that good?" And he called over one of the other coaches. He said, "Tell Tom about this kid." And he said, "I've never seen a freshman in high school with these instincts. He said, he just gets out there. And it's not just wild juking. It's total control. He's seven."
Well, you don't coach that. That's pure genetics and instinct. And if your kid is like me, you're going, "That's not fair. That's not fair that he's like that."
God's Greater Promise
And God says, life is going to feel like that over and over and over again. But here you go, buddy. I got it. I got more than your back. I got your soul. I got your cover.
Okay, pick up right there next week.
Father, thank You for that truth. Take it, drive it deep in our heart. Thank You for repeating this over and over again, because obviously we need it. So God, thank You. Thank You for Jesus. We pray in His name. Amen.