May 31, 2026 | The Palace, the Priest, and the Plow
The Palace, the Priest, and the Plow | Ecclesiastes 4:13-5:9
Ecclesiastes 4:13–16
Better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice. For he went from prison to the throne, though in his own kingdom he had been born poor. I saw all the living who move about under the sun, along with that youth who was to stand in the king’s place. There was no end of all the people, all of whom he led. Yet those who come later will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a striving after wind.
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. For a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words.
When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear.
If you see in a province the oppression of the poor and the violation of justice and righteousness, do not be amazed at the matter, for the high official is watched by a higher, and there are yet higher ones over them. But this is gain for a land in every way: a king committed to cultivated fields. (ESV)
Jed Gillis explains that Ecclesiastes exposes our restless desire to control life through work, success, leadership, speech, worship, and human systems. Solomon shows that human authority rises and falls, public approval fades, and even wise leaders cannot carry the weight of ultimate hope. In response, God’s people must approach him with humble listening, careful words, faithful obedience, and reverent fear. Rather than grasping for control in a world marked by injustice and frustration, believers are called to trust the King of kings, who sees the palace, the priest, and the plow, and cares even for the lowest farmer.
Transcript of The Palace, the Priest, and the Plow | Ecclesiastes 4:13-5:9
Do You Trust God Enough to Battle Fear When You Know You're Not In Control?
Jed Gillis: I wanna ask you a question this morning as we start, and I'll ask basically the same question as we end. And really, this question gets at the heart of a lot of our challenges with the Book of Ecclesiastes. And it's related to all the stuff that we sang this morning.
Here's the question: Do you trust God enough to battle fear when you know you're not in control?
Do you trust God enough To battle fear when you know you're not in control, and I could even make it maybe a little harder for my soul with one of the phrases we just sang. We sang, "Would I gladly be made nothing?" It's one thing to say, "I will be made nothing for the sake of Jesus." It's another to say, "I will gladly be made nothing." It's one thing to say, "I'll try to fight fear when I feel out of control because I know fear is a really miserable place to be." It's another thing to say, "Will I gladly battle fear when I feel out of control because I trust God that much?"
Because throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, as Solomon has built his argument, he keeps pointing you to things that we tend to look to for control and says they don't really work Now, if you hear all of that and you're not really convinced of the goodness of God, you're not really convinced that He is trustworthy, then it's going to feel depressing.
And I worded the question the way I did because I don't expect anybody is going to go through their life and never feel fear when they feel out of control. I didn't say, "Do you trust God enough to not feel fear when you feel, feel out of control?" I know we all, in our humanity, in the fact that we are limited, we will feel that fear.
But do you trust God enough to feel the fear and then fight against that fear to say, as you notice, we are a little more decorated for, uh, Psalm or Psalm 23 in VBS, to be able to say, "The Lord is my shepherd, I won't lack anything"? Even when it feels like I'm lacking something, even if it feels like I'm out, out of control, to say, "No, I trust God gladly as my shepherd."
This question of trust, and I, I, I think I've talked with many of you on a more individual basis, and I know that you have gotten to the same question. But just in case you haven't connected these two things in your mind yet, every time scripture says something around control, and every time you feel, "I just have to be in control," the alternative to me controlling is me trusting God. Control and trust are the opposites because really when I try to control, I'm actually trusting myself.
So as we go through this text, what we're going to see is Solomon is taking the next step in his argument. He's already talked about things like knowledge and pleasure and productivity and relationships, and ways we try to get control to get safety or meaning in our lives.
He's talked about those, but perhaps you get to this point and you think, Solomon, I know I don't control everything, but it really seems like some people have more control than others I know money's not gonna solve all of my problems, but it really seems like that guy has better control of his life because he has more of it. I know being the leader, being the influential person, being successful, that's not enough to give my life, you know, eternal meaning, but it sure seems like this guy who's successful probably has a better chance of controlling his life than I do.
We have these kinds of questions as we look at things like leadership, success, control, influence. And Solomon's going to take us to think a little bit more deeply about those, and to conclude, like he did with the other things, no matter how much leadership and influence you get in this life, no matter how much success you get, you still don't take the place of God. You still can't control and make sure your life has lasting meaning.
Reading Ecclesiastes
Jed Gillis: And so Solomon starts the end of chapter 4, right after what we talked about last week with community, he starts talking about kings. Let's read just the end of chapter 4 from verse 13.
"Better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice. For he went from prison to the throne, though in his own kingdom he had been born poor. I saw all the living who move about under the sun along with that youth who was to stand in the king's place. There was no end of all the people, all of whom he led. Yet those who come later will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a striving after wind."
Human Leadership is Not Ultimate
Jed Gillis: So here's Solomon's principle. Human leadership is not ultimate. Just like all the other things he's talked about, human leadership and influence is also fleeting and frustrating. And he starts by talking about kings here, but so that we know right off, 'cause most of us say, "My life, my life goal is not to be a king." We know that's not really in our world. So we can just say, well, kings were leaders and were influential.
We can also look further in chapter 5, and notice when you get down to verse 8, he talks about the high official who's watched by a higher, who's watched by a higher, and the king is above that. In this whole section, he frames chapter 5 here with the idea that you have leaders at all these different levels.
So for you, the principles that Solomon talks about here are true for, yes, kings, politicians, policemen, so we think authority, civil authority, but also in the workplace for authority and leadership for bosses, for managers, vice presidents, for parents who have authority and leadership and influence, for students, for student council members or team captains. All throughout our lives, we have all these different levels of leadership and influence and authority. And the principles he talks about are true for all of these different things.
Leadership is Not a Substitute for Genuine Community
Jed Gillis: And here's his one principle from chapter 4:13 through 16. Leadership, or we could say influence, or we could say authority, any of those work about the same in Solomon's argument here. Leadership is not a substitute for genuine community. Leadership is not a substitute for genuine community.
I mean the kind of community he's talked about in verses nine through 12, the kind of community that restores you when you fall When someone is a leader or influential, parents, team captains, teachers, bosses, any level, when someone's a leader, if they're human, they are still going to fall at times. So they still need community that can restore them. The kind of community that strengthens you when you're weak.
Those of you who are preparing to lead in VBS this week, I will be willing to bet many of you feel kind of weak as you look forward at the week. The week, the seven-day week, the other one. You probably feel weak and you're, say, "I'm gonna walk in and be the, the, the class leader." Right.
Because human leadership doesn't mean you never fall. It doesn't mean you're not weak. It doesn't mean you don't face danger. In fact, human leadership means you still need, leadership is not a substitute for community that restores you when you fall, strengthens you when you're weak, and protects you when you're in danger.
I appreciate many times I'll pray with brothers and sisters on Tuesday or sometimes our summer Wednesday plans, or I'll get texts from brothers and sisters who say, "I'm praying for you," or the pastoral staff, or the elders, or the leaders, 'cause we all need it. And that's true in your area of influence and leadership too whether you feel like it's big or small.
Teens in this room, you have friend groups, and you exercise influence and leadership. And you need that community of people around you who can help you when you fall, when you're weak, when you're in danger.
Learning to Take Advice
Jed Gillis: Notice the way he talks about it in verse 13, "Better to be a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice."
I think God's in control of our Facebook feeds too, right? So I saw this, this morning as I was looking at stuff th- this morning, I saw this riddle. Said, "Most people need it, often ask for it, love to give it, but rarely take it." Advice. Most people need it, often ask for it, love to give it, but rarely take it.
Solomon's just saying kings need that. And that's where his mind goes, by the way, when he was talking about community, right, in the verses before. Two are better than one. A threefold cord is not easily broken. When he thinks about what do people who have differing degrees of influence and leadership, what do they need in community? They need counsel. They need advice. They need to be able to talk back and forth. Notice, your position doesn't change anything. The king in this story needs to take advice.
You know, in our government structure, we have a president and we also have a cabinet, and when that functions correctly, they're giving lots of good counsel to the president. That's the whole point.
Leaders need advice. Your position doesn't change anything. You can be the boss, the CEO of your company, you still need to know how to take advice. You can be the mom or the dad. You need to know how to take advice. Position and authority doesn't change anything.
Notice age doesn't change anything. So he says, "Better to be a poor youth," and the implication is who knows how to receive advice, "than to be an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice." Age doesn't change anything. You still need counsel from those people around you.
We often think about, like, high school students or college students or new parents as moving into new stages of life, but I've talked with plenty of you who are a little bit older than that, and you would say, "I've got a whole new stage that I haven't lived in," like adult children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren or retirement. Nobody knows how to do all of those things by themselves. They need community. They need counsel. All of us do.
Solomon looks at the king and says, "Just like everybody else, the king needs this kind of community of relationship where these things can be shared back and forth to restore, to strengthen, and protect."
There's Always Opportunity for Growth
Jed Gillis: And then he gives this illustration in verse 14. This is one of those places I'd love to be able to talk to Solomon and say, "What exactly did you mean?" Because if you look at different translations or if you look at, uh, certainly if you go look at the Hebrew, there's ... This is confusing. It's a little confusing in English. We have questions like, is Solomon just telling a story, like an Aesop's fable kind of thing when he says, "For he went from prison to the throne, though in his own kingdom he had been born poor"? Is he just saying, like, this is possible, it's a, it's a fable, a story? Is he talking about a specific historic event? The Hebrew's not really clear as to which one he's doing. Is he saying that the poor and wise youth that he described in verse 13 went from prison to the throne, or is he saying that the king who now doesn't take advice went from prison to the throne? In other words, when he says, "He, for he went from prison," I'm like, "Solomon, who's he?" That'd be really helpful for me to know the, the referent for that pronoun. These kinds of questions are in this verse, and to be perfectly honest, I don't know exactly what Paul m- what ... I keep saying Paul. What Solomon means about this.
But here's the principle that I think we can clearly take someone who is poor, young, and wise, so they receive counsel, there is great opportunity for growth. Someone who's rich and powerful and proud, so they don't receive counsel, instead finds great potential for disaster.
Now, I don't know if he was saying, "Hey, look at that king over there. This guy, that's who I meant." I don't know if that's what he meant.
But we could take some biblical examples, and we could talk about Joseph. He went from being the beloved son of his father into prison, and then he came out and became just under Pharaoh. We could talk about someone like David Who rose from being a humble shepherd boy to being chased by Saul to eventually being king, which would've been Solomon's father, so maybe he had something like that in mind.
Position and Authority Comes and Goes
Jed Gillis: I don't know the specific situation, but I know the principle can be seen in several different places. Age doesn't mean you don't need counsel. Position and authority doesn't mean you don't need counsel. Instead, Solomon points in, to this and says leadership and influence comes and goes. That's always going to be true.
Notice in verse 15, "I saw all the living who move about under the sun, along with that youth who was to stand in the king's place." He says, "I looked out and saw the whole country." It's like I can just imagine all the people milling around .And somewhere out there is the successor to the king. I saw the youth who was going to stand in his place.
And Solomon says, "Wait, just like I started the book when I said the, the sun rises and the sun sets, the rain falls and then it evaporates back up. These cycles that happen in nature," Solomon says, "They happen in leadership too." I look at the king and he was wise and he listened, and then he got proud, and guess what? Somebody else is gonna take his place. You look at the CEO who rises from the bottom of the company to the top, and guess what? He won't be the CEO in 50 more years.
Leaderhip is Frustrating If You Use It to Control Your Life
Jed Gillis: So again, Solomon's going back to leadership and influence just like he says at the end of verse 16. They're also vanity, fleeting, passing. And they're also frustrating if you try to use leadership to control your life.
So I want to ask you to think about your life and the areas where you are in leadership where you have influence, where you have authority. Do you have that kind of community? Do you have people around you who give counsel that you can hear?
Now, I don't mean just do you take counsel in your weakness. We're really good at that. Like, if I know I'm bad at something, I'm pretty quick to say, "Can you please help me learn how to fix this?" That's easier, but notice his example was the king, the guy who's already sitting on the throne. He's not there because he's bad at leadership. He's there probably because he was good at it at some level. The guy who's already got the position who might feel like, "I've got this figured out. I don't know if I really need that much counsel." He says he forgot how to take counsel. He forgot how to receive this kind of humble community.
And I use that word humble because giving counsel requires humility, and so does taking counsel. Both sides.
I used the example earlier of, of parenting adult children, but I know some of you walk that road right now, and you say, "It's kinda hard when you think I wanna give counsel and I think I'm right, and they don't do it the way I want them to." That takes some humility to not just say, "I'm not gonna give any counsel. I'm gonna forget it, let them sink or swim." No, to offer counsel, to talk with them, and to recognize they may not do it the way you would do it. That takes humility.
It also takes humility to receive counsel because receiving counsel doesn't always mean agreeing. So think about this context. If the king had no convictions and leadership himself, he wouldn't be much of a king. If all he did was go talk to this other guy and say, "Hey, what should we do about this?" And that guy says something, and he just, "Okay, great, that's what we're gonna do." We have a term for that. We call that guy the power behind the throne. He's the real king. This guy's just a figurehead. He's not really a king.
Solomon's not saying to receive counsel by saying, "Whatever anybody tells me, I just, 'Yep, that's what I'm gonna do.'" No, there's humility required to give the kind of counsel that restores when you fall, strengthens when you're weak, and protects when you're in danger. There's humility to give it, and there's humility to receive it.
So I want to ask you to think about your areas of leadership, your areas of influence. Solomon uses this phrase at the end of verse 13, "Who no longer knew how to take advice." Take stock of yourself and say, "Did I take counsel much better five years ago or 10 years ago or 50 years ago than I do now?" It's something you can forget. You can no longer know how to do it.
Solomon Does Not Just Change Topics
Jed Gillis: Now, if you read through this next section, you might think Solomon just abruptly changes topics. He goes on, your Bible may have a a, a heading, mine does, that says, "Fear God," over chapter five, verse one through seven. It may say something like, "Carefulness in Worship." It may say all kinds of different things.
And it can feel like Solomon, okay, great, you gave us a little proverb, better to ha- to counsel even as a leader. Okay, good. Now we're gonna talk about worship. I want to encourage you, I don't think that's what Solomon's doing. I don't think he's changing the subject because if you'll go down and read chapter five, verse eight and nine, solomon goes back to these themes. "If you see in a province the oppression of the poor and the violation of justice and righteousness, do not be amazed at the matter, for the high official is watched by a higher, and there are yet higher ones over them."
In other words, he goes back to the beginning of chapter four, oppression, injustice, and to leadership, like he talked about with the king. Then verse nine, "This is gain for a land in every way, a king committed to cultivated fields." He returns to kingship and good authority and good leadership.
Guard How You Approach God
Jed Gillis: In between, he talks about how you approach God. So I want us to take a minute and say, what does he say in 5:1 through 7? But I want you to have in your mind, why does he put this in between talking about a king who listens and a king committed to cultivated fields?
Why does he put this section there? Let's read it. Chapter five, verse one. "Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few, for a dream comes with much busines and a fool's voice with many words. When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for He has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Let not your mouth lead you into sin and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity, but God is the one you must fear."
So Solomon takes you from thinking about the king of the land and says, "Let's talk about the King of Kings." If we're gonna talk about authority and leadership and how authority and leadership in a human context is fleeting, and it passes, and there's gonna be another king who comes into his place, and that king has to take counsel, let's look at that on one hand, but let's talk about the King of Kings and how you come before Him.
Drawing Near to Listen is Better than the Sacrifice of Fools
Jed Gillis: So the first ... He gives you really a series of proverbs. The first proverb is, "To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools." Notice two different characters. One is they're, we're both drawing near. One's drawing near to listen. One is drawing near to offer a kind of foolish sacrifice.
Now, when he says offering a sacrifice, that could mean, in their context, temple sacrifices. They're bringing lambs to sacrifice. We don't do that. But here's what I think it looks like. I think it sounds like we bargain with God. Are you ever tempted to do something like, "If you will just provide for this one big emergency expense, then I'll give regularly to you"? God, if you'll just solve this one relational problem, then I'll give up this sinful habit over here. Or we do it the other way 'cause that one feels bad, so we go, "Oh God, I'm gonna give up this sinful habit. You really have to solve this problem for me."
We can come to say things to justify ourselves before God. "God, I've been doing all of this really hard work for you, so you owe me, like, some priority consideration."
That's really what sacrifices in pagan religion were all about. They were about appeasing a god who probably didn't care about you and trying to convince him to do good for you. That's what sacrifices in a pagan context did.
I want to ask you to think, do you do that when you pray? Do you come to God trying as if he doesn't care about you and you're trying to convince him that you've done enough good that he should listen?
Or do you trust a good God?
When You Approach God, Are You Listening or Speaking?
Jed Gillis: Do you come to listen? The posture of your soul to say not, "God, I'm gonna spill out all of these words so that you'll do what I want you to do." But to come to say, "God, you're so good and I want what you have for me."
Solomon says it's better to come to listen to God because, the end of verse one, they do not know that they are doing evil. Again, the Hebrew in this is really difficult to know exactly how it fits together. I think the best way for us to understand it is to say the one who's offering the sacrifice of fools, since they're not listening, they don't hear the conviction that s- saves them from their blind spots.
In other words, they come in and they spill out all these words to God, and God wants to show them an area where they're, they're sinning, where they're struggling to follow the right path. He wants to show them that area so that it changes so that it's better for them, but they aren't even listening to hear that. They're too busy saying, spilling out words of all the good things they've done to try and appease God and get Him to help them. There's two fundamentally different postures. Do you come to church to show off for God or do you come to church to hear from God?
I wanna ask you to do this this week. Whether it's your habit, I hope it is, to spend time with God in His Word and in prayer, I hope it is your habit. Whether it's your habit or not, I wanna ask you this week, take time for silence before God. If you normally read your Bible for 15 minutes, take half of it. Read scripture, sit with God, and don't try to fill the space with all the words. Draw near to listen.
Say, "What am I listening for? Is it like this audible thing?" I-- God has ways of impressing on our souls what He wants us to, to hear. But I would encourage you, one way I've been helped drawing near to God to listen is just to take, take a journal, take a note app, take a whatever, and if yous are thinking about a song lyric, if you're reading a scripture, and one phrase stands out to you, jot it down. Spend time in silence and whatever stands out to you as you think about truth of God's word, as God works, jot it down, and then look back after a week. I'll tell you when I've done that consistently, it is never that hard for me to spot a theme that God is working in my life.
Sure, not everything I write down relates to that theme, but you will find God has been working. And when you piece together, oh, what has God impressed on my soul through His Word, through conversations with brothers and sisters, through thoughts that pop into my mind. What has he continually impressed on my soul to say, "God, I want to hear."
Think about husbands and wives when you talk with your spouse. More often than not, probably husbands are guilty of this. You hear a sentence and you go, "Oh, I've heard my wife." And she's thinking, "No, I want you to have heard the whole context of the last week." But we often are too busy drawing near to talk than to listen.
I wanna encourage you, spend time this week in silence with God. If you are a journaler or if you wanna try it, try that. Pull out a piece of paper, jot down the things that come to your mind, and don't try to make sense of all of them at that exact moment and all that they mean. That's okay. If you have 15 minutes to spend with God, spend 15 minutes with God. Jot down what comes to your mind. Put it aside. Come back the next day. Do it again. Do it again. Finish a week and then go back. And see if you see themes God has been impressing on your heart. Draw near to listen, not to speak.
Don't Be Rash With Your Mouth Before God
Jed Gillis: His second proverb is in verse two, "Don't be rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God."
Now, maybe we think, like, Solomon, you just kinda said that, right? Listen, don't speak. Well, as it turns out, we really need to be told over and over to listen and not speak. Remember James says, "Be swift to hear and slow to speak"? He could have just said one of those, but he says both of them. Be swift to hear, be slow to speak. Solomon does it here. He says, "Draw near to listen, and don't be rash with your mouth." Because we tend to want to just come and speak.
I've heard people, you've probably heard people say, "You know, when I get to heaven, I'm gonna tell God a thing or two." No, you're not.
But that's the idea. Don't be rash with your mouth. I'm gonna tell God how he should have run his world. God, I'm gonna tell you how you really should have ordered my life differently Not when you see him you won't.
But I can take that posture sometimes when I have something that's really deep and meaningful to me, and I can come and my prayer can be telling God how He has to work in my life. That's not the posture we're supposed to take before the King of Kings.
So Solomon says, "Don't be rash because God is in heaven and you are on earth." By the way, I've used this phrase multiple times in Ecclesiastes. This is one of the places Solomon does it. Essentially, he's just saying, "Don't be rash because God's God and you aren't. He's infinite and you're not. He's in heaven with that perspective, and you have your tiny little earthly perspective. Don't be rash to tell God how to run his world because God's God and you are not. Therefore let your words be few.
Now, I don't think what Solomon is doing is saying, "We sang too many words this morning. We just need to not sing." I don't think that's the point. I don't think Solomon is saying, "If you're reading God's word out loud, you're saying too many words, so don't say them." No, that's not really his point. The point is this posture that says, "I have to spill my words out to get God to do what I want him to do," is the wrong posture before the King of Kings.
Let your words be few because, and here's where you get the, this picture of a dream and words that he uses again in verse seven. When you have a dream or a goal or a desire, what do you tend to do?
I don't mean like the, "I have a dream to climb Mount Everest, but I'm not actually doing anything about it." I don't mean that kind. I mean the kind where you say, "I have a dream that I really want my life to look like this." I know some of you, you, you might even be borderline obsessive over that dream, right? It's all you can think about. Here's how I'm gonna work this part of my life, and here's how I work this part of my life so that the dream happens. With a dream comes much busyness. When you have a goal and something you're pursuing so hard, there's all these different things. And sometimes you overthink and you just keep working, and that can even destroy the goal that you actually wanted. This is just natural. When we have this kind of goal, all this overwork comes with it. In the same way, when you have a fool who is talking, their words just keep spilling out.
So I want to ask you again listen to yourself when you pray.
I thought about saying to do this. I don't know how this would work, so you can, if you want to, you can do it. You don't have to for sure. It's a little weird. I thought about recording myself praying. So that I could listen and be like, "What did I actually say?" Because I know there are times that I go to God praying, and instead of actually praying in a trust posture, I'm praying myself trying to grasp, "God, you have to do it exactly this way, and if you don't do it," what? If you don't do it the way I want you to, does that mean God's not good? Is that what I'm saying? If you don't do it the way I want you to, does that mean God can't be trusted? Is that what I'm saying?
Or am I coming before God to really say, "God, you're actually the king. Whether you work the way I want you to or not, I trust you"?
When you pray, listen to yourself. Are you really trusting God? Or do we just use religious words to cover up worry? Guilty.
Don't Delay Paying a Vow to God
Jed Gillis: Solomon continues though to say, "When you vow a vow to God, don't delay paying it." He says, "Look, rash vows, when you come with rash words, 'God, I'll do this if you do this for me,' rash vows, that's foolish, but unpaid vows are worse." He says, "If you're going to come to God, don't think your words and the posture of your soul don't matter. God loves truth. It's better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay."
In their context, they would make these vows where they'd say, "God, I'm gonna give you this if you solve this problem in my life." They would say things like that. They would say, "God," um, Hannah, for example, she'd say, "If you give me a child, he'll be dedicated to your service." That's the kind of vow we're talking about. And God did give her a child, and Solomon's saying, "So make sure you dedicate the child to His service. That was your word. That was your promise. God loves truth, so don't justify that deception."
Says, "Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake." Uh, the messenger language there would be like if, if Hannah prays and says, "If you give me a child, I'll dedicate him to your service," and then the messenger comes to say, "It's time to take the child into God's service." And she says, "No, no, no, it was a mistake. I didn't mean it."
That's what he's saying. Don't be rash with your words. Don't be quick to speak to try to manipulate God in any way. But when you make promises to God, keep them.
Our Dreams for Life Are Fleeting
Jed Gillis: And he makes his conclusion statement in verse seven. When dreams increase, when you have this kind of goal that just consumes you, and when words grow many, you come, "God, I'm gonna wor- do this and I'm gonna work all this out in my life and do all this, so you have to do these things for me." These words just keep spilling out. When that kind of dream and that kind of word increases, what do you find? Vanity. It's fleeting.
You think you're gonna control your life with your goals and your work and your words and your prayers and your religious things. You think it's all gonna work to control so you have something lasting. And again, Solomon says, "No, you won't find that kind of control."
It's really possible, and I think it happens far more than we want to admit, that we use language of worship or prayer to cover our own control and self-reliance. We come to church because we think, "If I come to church and I'm consistently involved and I spend my time praying and I do all these things, then God has to work my life out the way I want him to." It becomes just a way of trying to control.
Human Authority Often Comes With Oppression and Justince
Jed Gillis: But this is why Solomon puts this where he does. Because right after this, he returns, like we said, to oppression and injustice and to authority. And he says, "When you see human authority..." So if you imagine an authority chain, and you say, whatever, you have the, the city government, and then you have the state government, and then you have the national government, and then you have the president, and you have... you keep going. You can do this thing. They could do it. You could have, here's the, the magistrate and the city official, and here's the regional official, and here's the king. You can have this authority chain.
Solomon says, "When you look at human authority and you see it like that, you often see oppression and injustice."
The reason he says is 'cause if you've got this chain, you go, "Okay, this guy down here, he might be a really good guy. He might know you." Sometimes we get this in your, your city government. You go, "Oh, I know him. He doesn't wanna do anything that's bad." But he doesn't get to call all the shots. There's a guy above him, and he's gotta make sure he keeps his job. Or maybe it's in an employment context and you go, "Well, my manager, I really like him. He's really understanding, but his manager sometimes says things that get difficult for me." Solomon says you look at a human world full of authority and you find sometimes corruption and oppression. What is the solution for that?
Now, you can take the approximately Marxist solution and say human authority is just all there is. Everybody's just making power grabs and try not to get in trouble with the wrong people.
Or you can take Solomon's answer, which is this. When you take that authority chain all the way up you find God. You find an authority at the top who's not unjust and not corrupt, and he's the kind who uses this phrase.
You have to think about what it is because Solomon doesn't put the cookies on the lowest shelf for us here and make it the easiest he could. Verse nine, he says, "There's gain for a land in every way, a king committed to cultivated fields."
So in the picture, when the king up here says, "The farmer is the guy I'm looking out for," the land flourishes. When the boss, when the CEO says, "The lowest worker in the company is the one I wanna make sure that they are doing really well," the company generally flourishes. When the highest authority says not, "I'm trying to look out for only myself, but I'm trying to look out for the lowest person," authority and leadership is a wonderful thing. And Solomon's pointing us to say, "This is what a king does."
Do You Trust the King of Kings to Care About the Lowest Farmer?
Jed Gillis: And because he just talked about the King of Kings He gets to the, probably the most fundamental question, which is the one I started with. Do you trust the highest authority, God To actually look out for the lowest farmer, you and I.
Do you trust God enough that when you feel out of control and you say, "Man, looks like there's some oppression, injustice, there's difficulty," do you trust God to really care about your good when you're afraid because you feel out of control?
All throughout Ecclesiastes, Solomon says, "This is vanity. This is frustrating. You'll find you're out of control over and over and over and over again." Do you trust God to be good?
That's where I find the hardest time. I can hear all the ideas that Solomon says. Yes, I don't trust money. Yes, I don't trust power. Yes, I don't trust productivity. In my head, I can trust all of that, but when I feel out of control, what do I wanna do? Grab onto something and control.
When you're driving in a car with somebody and you see a car stopping in front of you, some of you may scream, but we'll pretend we won't do that at the moment. Especially if there's one of those little handles on the door. You straighten this leg and you grab this, right? That is not gonna stop the car, guys. And it's not going to protect you. Your leg's just gonna snap if you get in an accident.
But we do the same thing when we're riding in life and we feel out of control, because you feel out of control every single day. So you grab, "Oh no, I've been really productive. My life is safe. Oh no, I know a whole lot of things, so I know I've got control, and I'm gonna make sure my kids turn out the way I want them to."
And it's like grabbing the inside of a car. What Solomon does is point us to say, "Do you really come to God to listen to the king who actually cares for your good?" When you feel out of control, can you honestly say, "I am more... I am glad that God is control, in control. More glad that God is in control than if I were"? That's hard. When you feel in danger and you wanna control your safety, are you more glad that God's in control than if you were?
Without directly asking it, Solomon asked that question. Is God, the infinite king of creation, the kind of king who can be trusted with all authority in your life? Is he the kind of king that really loves his subjects and really cares for the good of his people? If we're not convinced he's that kind of king, we'll bargain with him, we'll try to appease him. It'll sound like we're worshiping while we're really grasping for our own control with both hands because we don't really trust the goodness of God. If you don't trust God to be a good king, you will always try to control your life somehow, and Solomon's point is you'll always feel anxiety and frustration.
Thankfully, we have more than Solomon had though. We have the goodness of a king who left his throne. Who came and lived and who died. Who came and suffered out of love for you and for me.
So we don't have to go, "I wonder if God is that kind of king at all." We look to the cross and know He is a God who can be trusted. Who can be trusted more than you can trust yourself. Because he poured out his love enough to separate you from your sin even though the cost was very great. Our king loves the least of these, which is us. Our king loves good, fruitful fields is the metaphor, and he can be trusted.
So I wanna ask you one more time, do you trust God enough to battle fear when you feel out of control? He can be trusted.
I wanna invite you just to take a moment. We're gonna take a little bit longer, 'cause we want to draw near to listen. So we're gonna take a moment of silence, and then I'll pray.