Sermon Tone Analysis

Wisdom and Folly

Over the last couple of weeks we have taken a journey through the Hedonistic Experiment that Solomon sought out to perform.

Everything he could have ever wanted to experience he did.

If he wanted to taste it he tasted it.

If he wanted to smell it he smelled it.

If he wanted to build it, he built it.

He lived the life that many of us have at one point or another thought about or dreamed of.

He had more money, women, and pleasure than could ever be experienced by any of us.

Listen again to what he says after he has concluded his experiment.

It didn’t matter how much he got.

It didn’t matter how much he experienced.

It didn’t matter, b/c it was all futile pursuit of the wind.

Chasing bubbles only to have the pop in his grasp.

There was nothing to be gained under the sun.

This can sound hopeless and depressing, but remember his view is limited by the things he can see, touch, hear, and smell.

He is limiting his pursuit to the earthly plane.

He limits his experience to that which is readily available and satisfies his carnal desires.

I want us to think about this slowly and carefully.

If all life has to offer us is pleasure, then Solomon’s conclusion is 100% correct.

But what hasn’t he really considered in the chapter and a half that we’ve looked at so far?

He hasn’t considered that there is more to life.

That this earthly plane isn’t all that exists.

The only time he has mentioned God was earlier when he blamed him for the fate of man.

But I do what you to know that this part of Ecc does get a little more hopeful.

A little less grim.

But before it does, it gets just a little more gloomy.

So if we can’t find the meaning of life through the pursuit of pleasure, where do we go from there?

Solomon is going to take a chance to talk about wisdom.

If pleasure isn’t the key to meaning, maybe wisdom and knowledge is.

I want to be transparent with you for just a minute.

I’m a knowledge junkie.

I love to learn.

I love to think.

I love to engage in conversations and the occasional argument.

So when I read this from Solomon about wisdom and folly, I was struck to my core.

Is gaining wisdom and knowledge a pursuit of the wind?

Is growing in knowledge a meaningless and vain endeavor?

B/c if I’m honest I knew that the pursuit of pleasure and possessions is empty.

But I thought myself a little superior b/c I pursued a nobler task of knowledge and wisdom.

Here’s a deep truth that has challenged and confronted me as I have done this study.

Information fails to bring transformation.

Does that mean that wisdom and knowledge is bad?

No, it means that no matter how much wisdom and knowledge you have, if you aren’t pursuing God it will not have any meaning.

Not only that, but to have true wisdom you have to be able to ask the hard questions.

If wisdom is what you seek, then you can’t pull any punches.

Let’s Look at what Solomon has to say about wisdom.

Word of Warning

Verse 12 may sound a little familiar to you.

Solomon said almost the same thing in Ecc 1:13 “13 I applied my mind to examine and explore through wisdom all that is done under heaven.

God has given people this miserable task to keep them occupied.”

Ecc 1:17 “17 I applied my mind to know wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly; I learned that this too is a pursuit of the wind.”

So Solomon is returning to look at and examine something that he has already examined.

But he feels as if it needs another pass.

He needs to know more.

Maybe there is something that he missed.

Isn’t this what we do?

We go back to the place where we thought we lost something.

So, Solomon is thinking that since God granted him with a wisdom for the ages, maybe that would be the best place to go back and check.

Maybe wisdom has value.

Maybe wisdom can shine some light on life’s meaning.

In this translation we read that he is considering wisdom, madness, and folly.

It would be easy to assume that these are three categories, but in fact madness and folly go together.

They are two sides of the same coin.

So we would be better off in we understood that Solomon is considering wisdom and mad folly.

I want us to take moment and know exactly what’s happening here.

When it comes to wisdom there are a 2 different kinds of wisdom.

Wisdom that comes from the fear of the Lord.

And wisdom that comes from practical life experience.

Here Solomon is focused most on the second type of wisdom.

Wisdom that comes from practical advice and life experience.

Madness and folly on the other hand, encompass all of the mad folly that seems to be pursued in this world.

So after, Solomon pursued and engaged in all the pleasure the world had to offer, he goes back to the drawing board and wants to reengage with wisdom and mad folly.

He wanted too look at he right way to live and the wrong way to live.

He wanted to compare and contrast the two and see if he could figure out which one would bring meaning to life.

But before he takes us to his observations about wisdom and mad folly he kinda side steps and takes down another road.

Many scholars are confused about how this all connects.

What is Solomon driving at?

How can he consider wisdom and folly but then focus on the king’s successor?

We talked about a few weeks ago that Ecc is kinda like a sermon that’s being given.

And sometimes the pastor gets lost in his thoughts and says something that makes sense in his head, but can confuse the listeners.

I’m not 100% sure that’s what’s happening here, but as he speaking and he’s thinking about the fact that he has experienced all the pleasures of the world.

And he reflects on the fact that nothing changes, that there’s nothing new, and that nothing is remembered from the end of Chapter one, maybe his reflection is that this exercise of looking at wisdom and folly is also in vain.

Because he may look at it.

He may come to a conclusion, but that doesn’t mean that the one that follows him will see and come to the same conclusion.

The one to come after the king can’t do anything different than Solomon has already done.

If he truly had experienced all the pleasures of the world and didn’t hold back on experiencing them then he would have definitive say on the futility of the pursuit of pleasure.

And he knows that no one will do anything more than he had done.

The next king could surely meet and reach the heights of what Solomon had done, but he couldn’t do more.

Solomon is acting like a concerned parent here.

It’s like he’s saying “learn from my mistakes.”

Learn from my choices.

This is true for us right.

We look at our children and we see that they are little mirrors of our own brokenness and we want to shake them and say, “Hey!

Don’t do what I did.

Don’t Follow in My Footsteps.”

“I did it so that you don’t have to.”

He wants his successor to know that if he couldn’t find the meaning of life in the pursuit of pleasure than no matter how hard he tries it isn’t there.

At the same times he is talking to us.

He tried it all.

He did it all.