Amen. Trust that that is your heart here this morning. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we do thank you that you are the great I am. And we want to give you glory and praise this morning. As we open your word to us, God's mind to man, we ask that you would create in our hearts a sense of awe, a sense of neediness before our holy God, that we are incapable of truly meeting the incredible perfection, the expectation that you have of your creation. And so Father, we humbly come in the name of Christ this morning, realizing that it is through his perfection, it is through his blood that we are able to come and sing here this morning. It is not the popular thing, it is not the thing that most people do to come into a building one day a week, and to lift up praise to God. But Father, we thank you that you have chosen to put us on the narrow way. And it is with incredible thanksgiving that we come to you here this morning, that we praise your name, and that we can call you our God. What a tremendous thing that is. And we ask these things in Christ's name, amen. All right, Ecclesiastes chapter 7. We are getting our way through chapter 7. My plan, hopefully, if the Lord wills, is to actually finish chapter 7 next week. And then the following week, we will have our missions conference. And you'll have an opportunity to hear from Dr. Anderson. Tremendous man of God and I know you'll be blessed by him. So, we'll be continuing on this morning with Ecclesiastes just to kind of give you an outlook. Well, first of all, I just want to say do me a prayer for our leadership here as we seek to honor the Lord and each decision that is made as we recommend decisions to the congregation as well that you guys would would make this a deep matter of prayer, that these things would not be taken flippantly, but that these things would truly be given over to the Lord. And we want his mind on the future of this church. This is his church. We are simply servants of the great high king. And even as elders, we are simply under shepherds, under the chief shepherd. And our heart is to in humility, lead with a Christ-like servant leadership, and in that, or on that topic, as we finish up chapter seven, my goal is, after missions conference, to actually take a break from Ecclesiastes for a bit, and we're going to go through some passages on church leadership, and so, We're gonna do some studies about what is a church leader, what are the things that are expected of church leadership. And so that will be coming our way soon. But for this morning, we're gonna continue jumping in here to Ecclesiastes chapter seven. And the section here this morning is somewhat challenging. I mentioned last week that this middle part of chapter seven, I felt like I really needed to just kind of sit down and chew on for a bit, and that is certainly the case with these verses this morning as well. So we're gonna do that, we're gonna take verses 15 through 18, and hopefully we will be blessed by the ministry of the word to our hearts. There is a story of a bad little boy who didn't come to grief. written by Mark Twain. Many of you are familiar with Mark Twain. He describes the mischief of a boy named Jim. And unlike what the Sunday school books say about what happens to such boys, mischief-minded Jim seemed like nothing bad happened to him. For example, one time he climbed up in Farmer Acorn's apple tree to steal apples. I think George Washington did that at one point too. But anyway, and he didn't fall out of the tree, he didn't break an arm, he didn't get torn up by the neighborhood dog, and then he wasn't sick for weeks with infection, and he didn't repent of his stealing the apple. Then there was a time when Twain relates that he was boating on Sunday. And of course, in that day, the Lord's day was highly revered, and its twain goes on to say, he was boating on Sunday and he didn't get drowned. And that time he got caught in a storm when he was fishing on a Sunday, he didn't get struck by lightning. After recalling one peculiar providence after another, Twain concludes that with Jim all grows up, it seems like Jim got wealthy by all manner of cheating and rascality. Now, the infernalist wicked scoundrel in the native village is universally respected and belongs to the legislature of the city. In other words, he was elected into office. Twain makes us laugh, of course, with these inequities of Earth, or cry, one or the other. But we experience this reality sometimes where you have good things happening to seemingly bad people, or at least we could say people escaping Providence's so-called fate. And for us, many times, injustice is no laughing matter. We struggle with our lazy neighbor who makes more money than we do. And yet, maybe he just has a very, we could say, a cushy job. A star athlete who gets in trouble with the law. maybe even commits a very serious crime, even murder, and then he gets away with it. You see this around the world with different tyrants, right? Middle Eastern tyrants who daily grow in power on the backs of, we could say, those who are innocent. And so we struggle even more so, perhaps, with the opposite of this reality, where an innocent person or we could even say a godly person, suddenly is taken from this earth or something bad happens to them in this life, and we think to ourselves, well, that doesn't make sense. Whatever happened to karma, whatever happened to God rewarding those according to what they are due? And so Solomon deals with these paradoxes of life, and specifically the injustices of life, and that's really what we're gonna be talking about this morning, starting in verse 15 of chapter seven. And he reminds us of this fact. There is limitations to our human understanding. There are limits to what we understand as humans. And here is the main point this morning. We must trust God's sovereign plan and fear him. even when it seems contradictory to our sense of justness, even though we might think that it is not righteous. It is not righteous. So I wanna preach to you this morning about fearing God rather than trusting in our own self-righteousness. Verse 15 says this, in my vain life I have seen everything. This is the been there, done that mentality. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evil doing. So Solomon quickly here restates the theme of the book in a very personal way. He says, in whose life? in my vain life. Okay, so he realizes that this theme of vanity hones in not only to the world in general, but he personalizes it to himself here. He describes his life as also being vanity. Okay, he realizes that everything around him, the human life, can't be fit into this neat little box where all the questions are answered, where everything is explained. In other words, ultimately, life is a mystery. Life is unexplainable. It's unsubstantial. The more you try to grasp it, it feels like you are reaching into a pool of water. I know it's not summertime, but you're reaching into a pool of water and you're trying to grab a handful of water. What happens? Well, the water just squirts out your fingers, right? And so Solomon says he's seen it all. At this point, he has experienced all the ups and downs. And in his estimation, even when it applies to himself, it is vanity. He can't grasp hold of life. And this applies not only to the righteous, not only to the godly, but also to those who are unrighteous, those who are ungodly. Everyone who lives under the sun experiences this reality of vanity. So, he's seen it all, and now he's going to say two things that are vain in verse number 15. Number one, good people suffer and die. Good people suffer and die. He says he's seen everything and there's a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness. Now, these are people who are trying to conform to a standard. You know, most people think that they are good people, right? And so I would say even within our Alabama culture, even within our American culture even, people are trying to live life the right way. They're trying to do the right thing, even if it's by their own standards. And so ultimately, when we talk about the word righteousness, and we'll talk more about this in just a minute, but basically it means to be conformed to a standard, to complete your obligation, to fulfill your obligation. And so he says, that's our first idea of vanity. Vanity is seen in this reality that. Good people seem to die early. And secondly, evil people seem to thrive and even extend their life. It says, wicked the man prolongs his life in his, in the midst of his doing evil things. Okay, doing evil things. So, you have a guy and he, he smokes, right, his whole life. And you're talking to him. And here he is, he's 93 years old, and he's never had any problems with his lungs. He's never had lung cancer. On the other hand, the next day you run into this guy, another person, and they've contracted lung cancer at the age of 41, having never picked up any nicotine products whatsoever. Never smoked a day in his life of any type of smoking device. I know there are different options to smoke things out there, right? But this guy stayed away from it all. He's decided he's going to take care of his body. And so you ask yourself, well, this doesn't seem righteous. The righteous guy seems to end up with a shorter life, whereas the guy who didn't do things the right way live longer. The NLT puts it like this, I have seen everything in this meaningless life, which I don't ascribe, I don't think the word vanity means meaningless in the majority of cases, but it can in certain contexts in Ecclesiastes. But the NLT says, I have seen everything in this meaningless life, including the death of good young people, good young people die, and the long life of wicked or evil people. The Net Bible puts it like this, sometimes a righteous person dies prematurely in spite of his righteousness, and sometimes a wicked person lives long in spite of his evil deeds. You know, Job felt the same way. If you ever studied Job, and I brought him up a number of times, because I think he's a good illustration of some of the concepts here, but Job 21, he says this, why do the wicked live on growing old and increasing in power? Their descendants are established around them, and their offspring is before their eyes. Their homes are safe from fear, these wicked people. No rod of punishment from God is upon them. In other words, Job is musing on the fact that he's tried to be righteous, and he looks around and thinks, well, there are wicked people out there. And it seems like, quoting Job, no rod of punishment from God is upon them. God doesn't seem to be just. Okay. Where is the divine justice in all of this? Verse 15. Is life just a bunch of random Nonsense, right? So the big question is, how do you reconcile Ecclesiastes 7.15 with a passage like Proverbs 10.27? I'll read it for you. If you wanna turn over there, that's fine as well. Proverbs 10.27, it says this. The fear of the Lord prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be short. Did Solomon lose it when he got to Ecclesiastes? You know, he's at the end of his life here. You know, is this just a book of musings of an old man who's angry and frustrated? You know, the unsubstantial nature of life. Of course, I hope you would argue no. That's not the case. This book is. the word of God. This is breathed out by the mind of God. This is the divinely inspired, the divinely inspired words of God to our hearts. So what's going on? Well, first of all, we have to acknowledge that a proverb, well, let's talk about what a proverb is not, okay? A proverb is not a promise. A proverb is not a promise. You guys understand that? So when you go through the book of Proverbs, and even the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon has a lot of proverbs. But a proverb is not a promise, okay? A proverb is a general piece of wisdom that is generally true, okay? But not always. For example, a modern-day proverb would be this. Look both ways before you do what? Cross the street. That's right. Look both ways before you cross the street. So, does that mean if you look both ways before you cross the street that nothing bad will ever happen to you? Okay. Well, we understand that no, okay. But in general, it's going to provide a level of protection. Generally speaking, it is a good idea to look both ways before you cross the street. You say, well, what about the time, you know, this is the answer one of your kids gives you. Watch. Watch this one, all right. What about the time there's a truck bearing down on you and you don't have time to look both ways across the street? What do you do? Okay, I look both ways to cross the street and the truck runs me over and I'm flat as a pancake. No, I just run into the street to avoid the truck. Right. In other words, the modern day proverb is look both ways across the street, but that doesn't mean that in every case this is the thing to do. Okay. Here's another one. Seatbelts save lives. Right? You ever ran into a person who got into a wreck without his seatbelt on, and he would argue that it saved his life? Right? I'm not advocating don't wear your seatbelt. Guys, please don't take that away from this. But, you know, or on the flip side, you know, have you ever heard of someone who was wearing their seatbelt and actually died because they couldn't remove the seatbelt? Right? And so here is a modern day proverb. Does the fact that you have a proverb make it not true? No, the proverb is true. Look both ways before you cross a street. That is good advice, kids. Obey your parents. That is good advice. Put on your seat belt when you get into the car. For one thing, it's good advice, but secondarily, it also obeys Romans 13. At least in Alabama, I'm pretty sure the law is that you have to wear your seat belt. So it doesn't make the proverb not true just because you have certain situations that don't turn out like that, okay? So in generally speaking, a proverb means that something goes the way the proverb says it will, but it is not a what. It is not a promise that it will happen like that every single time, all right? Another one that you're probably familiar with from proverbs is raise up a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from what? from the ways that he has been taught, right, or from the ways of the Lord. I was paraphrasing that, but oftentimes we take that as a promise, and certainly that is a proverb, but it does not necessarily mean that it is a promise, all right? So, in the case of Proverbs 10, 27, a person who is wicked and foolish, right, will not live as long as they could live. You see this all the time when you apply for life insurance. What kind of questions do you have in a life insurance application? I had, do you drink? Do you smoke? What's your body mass index? How healthy do you eat? They might even ask, do you do drugs? These types of things. What's your blood pressure? So on and so forth. In other words, they're They're asking these questions because they're seeing if you are a wise person, if you're living in a wise way, because they're assuming there's a certain proverb about people who do these things, right? That their life is going to be longer, that they're not going to be as likely to die. And so even though they know that in general the proverb about wise people that their life is going to be long is true, there are times when that does not occur, and that's the whole mystery of vanity in Ecclesiastes chapter 7. So notice the text in at least the ESV translation says this, it is a righteous man, singular, the Hebrew text is singular, and a wicked man, so both of these terms are singular, so occasionally a righteous person will die while being righteous, and a wicked person will not die for being wicked, he'll have long life even in his evil doing. So in contrast to the general rule, the proverb, sometimes life throws you a curveball, right? And ultimately, someone who is trying to live the right way, trying to do the right things, might end up dying younger than expected, okay? Some things are crooked, verse 14, we talked about that last time, and you can't straighten them out, all right? This past week, I was at some meetings in South Carolina with some IFCA men, and one of the men who I serve alongside with in some projects, He's actually on the board of directors of the IFC. I'm not on the board of directors, but he is. Found out he's a 45-year-old pastor, thriving church in Michigan, really seeing the Lord work through him. A deeply humble man who loves the world, not loves the world, loves the Lord and does not love the world. Found out that he was recently diagnosed with ALS. And they've given him about three years to live. I has four children about the ages of my kids, nine years old all the way up through 17. And you think to yourself, well, you know, this man has tried to live the right way. Well, he is experiencing the reality of chapter seven, verse 15. In other words, life is vanity. The Amplify Bible translates this, I think, very well. It says this, I have seen everything during the fleeting days of futility. There is a righteous man who perishes in spite of his righteousness. There is a wicked man who lives a long life in spite of his futility. So, the question is, how do you respond? What is the application? How do you respond to the anomalies of life? How does Chad DeYoung respond to the fact that he has ALS? Right? Well, ultimately, we go back to the reality that you simply must trust in God's sovereign plan. That both good and bad things happen to people. both good and bad people. We live in a Havel world. And so, we as believing people who understand what true wisdom is, we can enjoy both the blessings from God, but we can also enjoy the things that maybe we don't consider blessings, but maybe we should, okay? In other words, we should enjoy and redeem the time that God has given to us under the sun because life is a vapor. We don't know how long our lives are going to last. And so I would encourage us here this morning that we would say with Paul, for our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory that is far beyond comparison. In other words, okay, life is hard. Sometimes things are difficult. Sometimes we might even have to experience the death of a family member that doesn't seem to be just in terms of the way they lived, or even perhaps face that ourselves. But this is producing in us an eternal weight of glory that is far beyond comparison to what we will experience here on this earth. And so, trust in God. Some righteous people die early, some wicked people die long, or live long. Ultimately, God is in control of your lifespan. But what about the next verse? If trying to live the right way doesn't guarantee that things will go well, or my way, You might ask yourself this question, what's the point of being wise? Why devote myself to follow God and be wise anyway? If I'm going to die young anyway, what's the point? That might happen to me. So should I just chill out and not worry at all about living in a wise way for God? Should I not really embrace wisdom as, you know, and that really is exactly what some people think. Look at verse 16. Be not overly righteous or excessively righteous. You could translate it. And do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not overly wicked or excessively wicked. Neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? Have you ever come across this verse and thought to yourself, wow, that doesn't seem to line up with my theology, right? What do you guys think? What does this verse communicate? Does this verse communicate that we should, that we should not be overly wicked but just a little bit? Right? That we should sin in moderation. Does this verse say, you know, let's not overdo it on the righteousness front, guys. Right? Don't be overly righteous. You know, some of you are a little, you're going a little too far. You need a little goody two shoes out there. You know? Always trying to be holy, holy, holy. You know? How in the world do you reconcile this, you know, with texts like Peter says, be ye holy as God is holy, right? Is this teaching us let's not get radical about our sin. Let's not get radical about holiness. Let's just take a chill pill, right? Maybe you think like the NLT, which says, don't be too good or too wise. Why destroy yourself? Too much religion or too many parties are going to lead you to an early grave. So you know what? Just chill. What do you guys think? Is that the message here? Right? If you're thinking, there are some texts of scripture that don't fit With that interpretation, I think you're on the right track. Davies points out that this happens to be the plan of salvation for many people until they take this verse and justify themselves. I'm not all that perfect, but I'm not all that bad either. So I'm gonna walk somewhere in the middle of the road, and I'm sure that when I get to heaven, God will be okay with me. You know, I'm just like the average normal guy out there, average normal girl out there. You know, the plan of salvation has nothing to do with Jesus. It has everything to do with you, right? And a lot of people take this as their own personal mentality about how to get to heaven. I would argue that no, this is not the message of this passage because in scripture we see that sin is never portrayed as acceptable in any way ever. We understand that. And so there is no option when it comes to fighting sin. We must never get into it. We must fight it until the death. Matthew 5.48, I'll give you some text. Matthew 5.48 says this. Therefore you shall be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect. Romans 6 says, therefore do not Refuse, do not let sin reign. Rule in your mortal body that you should, in order that you should obey its lust. Don't let it have dominion over you, the text goes on to say. Romans 8 goes on to say, if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. First John says, three says, whoever abides in him, that is in God, in Jesus, does not sin. Whoever sins, anybody who sins in any way has neither seen him nor known him. In other words, you have this idea where we have the New Testament reflecting the fact that we must not let sin reign. We must fight sin every single last one. So some commentators argue here that Solomon is just a man, that he's being pragmatic, that he's calling as he sees it, that this is just the musings of an old guy. He doesn't know any better. One of the guys is a guy named Schofield. He put it like this. He takes this position. This is the best that man can do apart from redemption. So we just need to go with the flow. I added the last part. I don't take that position, though. I don't think that scripture contradicts scripture in any way. And so what do we do here? Well, first we need to define our terms. All right, so the word righteousness. It's our Hebrew word, tzaddik, or tzaddikah. It's translated righteousness here, but it is not always translated righteousness. People assume that Zadokah is the synonym or righteousness is synonymous with godliness. Have you ever heard that? Righteousness is godliness? All right. But I took a class called Old Testament Theology in grad school and in seminary. And one of the things they have you do in that class is they actually have you do a word study on this very important word, righteousness in the Old Testament. And you go in the Old Testament, and you look up every occurrence of this word, and then you look at it in its context, and you assign, okay, well, how is this word defined based off of its context and how it's being used? In Hebrew, if you do a study on Zadokah, you will find that it does not mean godliness or even holiness in some context. In fact, the word generally and simply means this, conformity to a standard, conformity to a standard. I already mentioned that. It is the fulfillment of an obligation. So when God's law or Christ is the standard, then yes, it does mean godliness. In other words, when you need to conform yourself to God's law as the standard, if that is the context, then certainly yes, that would entail that this is a moral or a theological term, okay? It's theological in its usage, but I believe that Solomon is not using it in this sense. I believe he is using it in a general sense of conformity to a standard. I do not believe righteousness is synonymous with godliness here. We are not using this as in the imputed righteousness of Christ, and I do not believe Solomon is using it that way either. Okay. So, the word righteousness is not always used with the law of God as a standard. It's used with other things as a standard. In Proverbs, Solomon refers to a scale, a physical scale as being righteous. All right, so the scale is the standard. In Leviticus 19.35, Moses uses this word in a similar way. It says, you shall do no wrong in judgment in measures of length or weight or quantity. In other words, you have a certain scale that measures the length. or the weight or the quantity of something, right? We call the, we're measuring the length. What is the scale? It's called a tape what? A tape measure, right? So that is the scale, the righteous tape measure, all right? So you have just balances, continuing on in verse 36. You have just balances, here's our word, just. The standard is not God's law in this case, it's the scale. Just weights, just ephah, just 10, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. He tells Israel, selling and buying, here they are selling and buying, to make sure their standard is just, it is righteous. Okay, it's up to the standard. He doesn't want them cheating people out of what is due them justly. Okay, so the scale doesn't become righteous through Christ's redemption, right? We're not saying that the scale gets the imputed righteousness of Christ. Okay, no, that's not what's going on here, right? A righteous scale simply means an accurate scale. It's accurate. It's accurate. It conforms to the ways and measures that are fair. Proverbs says this scale is a delight to the Lord. A standard that is not messed with to turn an extra profit. And so righteousness doesn't have to be referring to God's law as a standard, it can be referring to other things as the standard that we need to conform to. So we normally think of wickedness as a moral way, as a violation of God's law. So let's just read verses 16 and 17. I already read verse 16, but let's move to verse 17. Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? So here we have the same idea of wickedness, right? But once again, wickedness does not have to be used in a moral way either. The term wicked can also be used as simply a general way, all right? And so the opposite of conformity to a standard would be non-conformity to a standard, right? So the opposite of righteousness, in this case wickedness, would be non-conformity to a standard. Well, what's a standard? That's the key here. If the standard is God's law, then we're talking about a moral or theological term. Many of the words for sin in the Old Testament are actually used in a non-theological or non-moral context. The word katah is translated as sin. Oftentimes, it is used by archers. In some situations, the word is used for archers who miss the mark. And so in the New Testament, we have this word in the sense of defining sin as missing the mark. Have you ever defined sin like that? Probably some of you who especially have taught children have defined sin like that. In some cases the word does not describe their moral aptitude. It'd be like, I go to a Christian camp in the summer sometimes called the Wilds in North Carolina and actually a few years ago we took some of the teens and we went out to the archery range and we were practicing shooting these bows and arrows. And actually, I don't know if she's here today, so I'm going to embarrass her. One of the best shots there was Beth. She was incredible. She's sitting there with this bow and arrow, and she's shooting, and she's hitting the bullseye. And so here we have this bow and arrow, and I'm shooting, and I'm shooting all over the place. All right, and so, you know, does that mean that because I am shooting at that standard, I'm not conforming to that standard, every time I miss a shot, I just sinned? All right, no, that is not necessarily a moral thing or a theological thing that's going on here. I'm just missing because I'm human and I'm a bad shot. All right, I'm a bad shot. All right, so when applied to a moral standard, we can simply make it theological, but if I miss the mark of holiness, that is sin, but if I'm missing a different mark, then that may or may not be sin. So what I'm arguing here is the terms righteousness and wickedness are not used in a moral context here. All right, the standard is not the unchangeable word of God. Solomon is saying whatever the standard of measurement is, don't be overly conformed to that standard, but at the same time, don't overly abandon that standard either. Don't be overly wicked. So the interpretation is confirmed by the grammar of the verbs as well. Being wise, in verse number 16, so don't be overly righteous and don't make yourself too wise. The word wise is reflexive, it's in the Hebrew grammar. The hyphal imperfect, you would translate it you yourself. To be wise yourself. So the standard is something that you set for whom? Yourself, this is a standard for yourself. This standard that you have set. So don't be wise in verse 16, I think should be understood in the context of Proverbs 3, 7. It says this, Proverbs 3, 7. Be not wise in your own eyes. Who's the standard? Well, you are, right? You are. So you yourself are the standard. Don't be conceited, don't be self-righteous. Don't think you've cornered and embarked on all biblical applications. So I see the standard in this case as simply this. The self-imposed rules or habits that we develop in life. So all of us have certain standards or rules that we set up in our life. And so Davy says, don't strut around like acting like you're some kind of spiritual giant because you have all the standards figured out. These are standards of righteous behavior that maybe you believe would please the God, that are in line with the word of God. And they certainly might be, but they may not be. I grew up in a very conservative home. One of the standards that my mom firmly believed was that this, that women should never wear pants. So if my mom was sitting here in the service here this morning, or if she was on the beach later on this afternoon, you would see her in a skirt or a dress. See, that was the standard. So don't be overly what? Don't be overly righteous in your standards. All right. Now, some of us are creatures of habit. And, you know, these standards are right behavior. The Pharisees, the New Testament exemplified the dangers of this, of being overly righteous when they really focused on external adherence to the law. with legalism. Some of you are creatures of habit. You like to conform to a standard. You like things just a certain way. Maybe you're like, you know what, I leave for work at 5.45, not 5.46 or 5.44. You know, if I'm ready at 5.41, I'm going to sit at my kitchen table until 5.45. And I'm going to make sure that I leave at 5.45. Because I like things going a certain way. I like to arrive at work right at whatever, right? 6.15 or whatever, okay? And I leave at 5.45 so I can avoid some of that traffic. And I know, you know, I'm going to be able to get there at this time and I'm going to sit down at my office desk at this time, all right? And so these things are, you know, might be non-moral or they might be moral. Some people believe that they should begin their quiet time at the beginning of the day, right? In other words, you know what? Maybe I tell my kids, you know what? In our family, we're going to have this standard. No Bible, no breakfast. All right? And so no quiet time, no breakfast. That's it. You better not get that bowl of cereal. Right? No Bible, no breakfast. Maybe another person says, you know what? I'm going to wake up at 7 AM and just get to work barely on time by the skin of my, you know, I'm not going to say that. Anyway, I always mess up those phrases. The problem of being born in Spain and raising with two different languages. So you're saying, I'm going to wake up at 7 a.m. and just, you know, and just get to work on time. And for me, I'm going to do my quiet time at between 10 and 11 at night right before I go to bed. Right? So kids, no Bible, no bed. Right? And this is the way we operate, you know? And so which way is the moral way to do devotions? Which is the correct standard? Right? This is not a matter of morality. OK. Now, you certainly can set some standards for yourselves, you know, and maybe for your standard, you need to be everywhere 15 minutes early. And, you know, for another guy or girl, you know what, 15 minutes early, you would say that would be an entire waste of 14 minutes. And so, you know, I'm going to get there one minute early. And this is the way it needs to be, right? And so some of us have self-imposed routines or standards, you know, some of you have eating and dieting rules and you say this is my standard. And it would be unrighteous, verse 16, don't be overly righteous. And you say, well, wait a second, I have a certain list of standards. I'm not going to eat sugar. And you say, well, you know what? You're going to be unrighteous by eating that donut. Or were you sinful by taking a bite of that donut? Was that sin, for you to take a bite of that donut? Well, I would argue probably not sin, maybe if you're eating two boxes of Krispy Kremes and you're glutton, but in other words, you have certain standards that you set up in your life, but don't be overly righteous and you're trying to adhere to those standards. So God is giving us some practical advice here. We have to realize that life is full of uncertainties. And certainly, it's good to have a good plan, it's good to have a routine, it's good to have goals, but this can lead to being excessively overly righteous. So if you put up too many standards, it can cause you to come to ruin, the end of the verse says, right? Why should you destroy yourself? Why should you ruin yourself? If you're so inflexible with the self-imposed standards of life that you try to straighten out all the crooked things that God has ordained, verse 14, you're gonna destroy yourself. You're not gonna let God be God. And here's the key, don't believe that you can control God. Don't be overly righteous. Don't believe them. You can manipulate God. Don't think, well, I can't share the gospel today because I forgot to do my quiet time. I woke up late. My alarm clock didn't go off. I didn't do my quiet time. I can't share the gospel. God is not going to bless me in that way today. He's not going to work. No, guys, don't be overly righteous, okay? One author commented like this on the test. He says, these sanctimonious saints are eager to impart to you lesser mortals their knowledge of scripture. Now, there's even people who oftentimes feel like they've cornered the market on all the application of every text of scripture. Their quiet times are always anointed. Their marriages are always rapturous. Their children are always superior. God evidently speaks audibly to them and they're eager to tell you what God has told them. Their applications from scripture for any situation are bulletproof. Just ask them. The New Testament refers to these self-righteous saints as immature Christians, but don't tell them that because it won't go well. So being overly righteous causes people to think, or leads people to think, that if you fail sometimes to complete a spiritual goal, that it means that God is not gonna bless you. I already mentioned that with an illustration, but some people might think, well, you know, man, I missed, I'm four days behind on my Bible reading. That's probably the reason I got in a wreck today. Don't be overly righteous. In other words, you've set a certain standard for yourself. You certainly should meditate on the word of God day and night. But you know what? Don't get to the point where you are thinking that God is not going to somehow bless you. No. Allow yourself to Let God be God. If you see that you need to improve in some way, certainly, you can say, you know what? I didn't fulfill that standard that I set up for myself. I need to do better with that. And we should always be pressing toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Don't allow that standard to dominate your thinking. We just had Valentine's Day, right? I was reading about the dangers of Red 40. and all the, you know, how it's made from petroleum and all this stuff. And this mom was saying, how could you do this to your child? How could you buy all this candy with Red 40 in it? Do you not know that your body is a temple of, fill in the blank, the Holy Ghost, right, the Holy Spirit? In other words, this is a standard. What does Solomon say? Don't be excessively righteous. He isn't saying don't be excessively godly. He's saying don't be excessively self-righteous. So don't be overly concerned to your standards. Don't think your wisdom is perfectly lined up with scripture. Realize that God can be God. God spoke to you, you might think, and gave to you the perfect recipe to raise children and the perfect recipe to create a perfect budget. You've got a corner on the financial end of things or create a perfect meal plan, but don't walk around like you're the perfect iteration of the Apostle Paul. But in verse 17, neither should you be excessively wicked. Once again, it's not saying that you don't, you not be a little wicked. In other words, you know, get drunk in moderation. No, don't sleep around in moderation. No, this is not a synonym for godliness. We aren't talking about a lack of morality, but a failure to meet your standards. So in other words, don't just abandon personal standards entirely. Godly habits and godly routines are important. Don't be overly nonconformist in your life. That is foolish. Right? Next line. Why? Because everything should be done decently and in order. It goes on to say, if you're acting like that, if you're thinking, you know what, I'm just going to just, you know, basically throw it all to the wind, so to speak. Be nonconformist in my life. No. That's foolish, the text says. Right, law and order is good, you need personal laws, you need personal standards. Solomon says over and over and reinforces this point, enjoy life as God has ordained it. And so once again, Solomon's point is simple here, let God rule in your hearts and lives. It doesn't mean don't have a schedule, it doesn't mean don't have household rules, it doesn't mean don't have routines. It simply means don't be overly frustrated when you don't meet your goal, family goal, personal goal. Maybe you missed the mark. But it may not be a sinful thing. It may be simply a self-imposed mark. All right. Neither be a fool. So don't act like a fool, someone who rejects it all, who rejects God's wisdom entirely. You go off and reject everything that your parents have taught you, all of the household rules. Some people think like this. Mom told me to look both ways before I cross the street. That was dumb advice. I'm going to just. B, you know, basically, I don't wanna be overly wicked, so I'm just gonna abandon it all and just walk across the street all the time without looking both ways. Well, you're probably gonna pay the price, all right? You know, parents say don't do drugs, you know, don't eat this many unhealthy foods. Well, the passage says don't be a fool. That's foolish, all right? And then at the end of verse 17, you're gonna die behind your time if you do this, before your time. All right, now not everyone dies early, verse 15, but you're putting yourself in a position to shorten your life. So trusting yourself and living rigorously for your own wise rules for life is ultimately not the answer. Finally, verse 18 gives us the answer as we conclude. It is a good thing that you should take hold of one thing, and that is, that thing is withhold not from your hand, and from that withhold not from your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them. So taking this verse one phrase at a time, first phrase, it is good that you should take hold of this. It refers to the fear of God at the end of the verse. You need to take hold of the reality of the fear of God. Let the fear of God grasp a hold of your thinking and dominate your mind. And from that, next phrase, withhold not your hand. Don't put away, don't back away from the fear of God. Keep your hand to the plow and don't look back. The New Testament tells us. Fear God and serve Him, that's true wisdom. Third phrase, for the one who fears God will come from both of them. Both of what? Being overly righteous and overly wicked. Fearing God is better than living like you think you can manipulate God by your showmanship By thinking that you know the perfect way to live, fearing God simply means that you're gonna live life in submission to God, with God at the center of everything that you do. Instead of thinking that you have all the answers, be humble. Be humble and let God be God. People write Christian books on all kinds of things. If we aren't careful, we can start to believe their applications. You know, you can read about I think I once saw a book, I think it's a curriculum. It says, Raising Kids God's Way. Okay. And it has like all these stipulations. If I remember correctly, it has these stipulations about how, you know, how you should, you know, how you should feed, what kind of routines you should give your kids and all these kind of things. And I thought to myself, that's a pretty, that's a pretty, I would say, arrogant statement. that everything that you said in that book is absolutely God's way. I understand that the author is trying to do things God's way and I respect that and I applaud that. But you could think, well, you know, I'm going to raise, I'm going to read a book about how to raise godly children or how to have a great marriage or, you know, how to be wise financially. You know, and if I follow that wisdom to a T, some people think what? Well, it's guaranteed that I'm going to have, a long life. I'm gonna have great kids. I'm gonna have a great marriage. And there is a mystery to life that we cannot understand. This applies both to the wise and the foolish. And many times we think that our rules are God's rules, and I would say simply this, be careful. You are not God. One author said this, too much passes for true piety that is not piety at all. Don't think that if you are so careful about your Christian life, that if you are so careful about just getting all of your T's crossed and your I's dotted, that you can enjoy what you want to happen. Is that how you think? The text says that that thinking will cause you to ruin yourself. Don't think like that. Instead, fear God. That's the message. Fear God. Stand in awe of God. Humble your heart towards God. And I would add, Humble your heart towards God and others with your opinions about life. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would drive our hearts to the cross here this morning, drive our hearts towards a fear of God. Help us not to think in a way that presents ourselves as being this overly righteous individual that has all of the perfect standards. Father, when we mess up, when we miss the mark in terms of the standards that we have set up, help us not to get so frustrated and bitter and angry at this, but help us simply just to fear God. This is the answer of this text here this morning. This is our answer as we go out into our work weeks. Fear God. Allow Him to govern your life. Try to live in a way that we would eliminate sin, that we would be faithful towards God and being holy, that we'd reflect the image of Christ, the stamp of God's image on our own life, as Dave reminded us. But Father, help us not to fall into this thinking that being overly righteous somehow is going to earn extra grace and extra measure of favor from you. Because that is just flat out not true. All the grace that we have is available to us every single moment. Help us to run to that grace this morning by fearing God. In Christ's name.