Ecclesiastes 7:23-29 says,...Bible reading week 7, day 5

Today's verses are Ecclesiastes 7:23-29, which read,

v.23-25 - I tested all this with wisdom, and I said, "I will be wise," but it was far from me.  What has been is remote and exceedingly mysterious.  Who can discover it?  I directed my mind to know, to investigate and to seek wisdom and an explanation, and to know the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness.

Somethings are unknowable.  We can strive to be more wise.  We can put ourselves in discovery mode.  We can investigate like a detective but in the end somethings are unknowable.  It is good to be seeking wisdom and it is good to have a mind to discover and know the explanations that we can grasp but we will scratch our heads at times over things like the shootings in Florida this past week.  How could this happen?  What was going on in his head?  How could this have been prevented?  Where are we failing to have this type of behavior happening across our nation?

All these are questions that we could get some answers in our discoveries and investigations but somethings will be hidden and especially when the person doing the shooting kills themselves or is taken out for the good of those around them.  We stand with the parents who don't know how to process such evil.  All we can do is stand at that moment and weep with them over their loss that came about because someone followed folly and madness.  Someone thought this action was the answer.  I think in our striving for more wisdom and our investigations of the facts we can make some improvements and increase our preaching of the right but it will not eradicate sin and its effects until the Lord returns.  We always have the poor as the Scriptures say but we always have sin also until we are in a place where there is no sin.  We battle against it and we should but we will continue to weep over it at times and shake our heads in disbelief to what we are hearing and what we are seeing.

v.26 - And I discovered more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are chains.  One who is pleasing to God will escape from her, but the sinner will be captured by her.

The woman spoken here is the woman of seduction that Solomon warns young men about in the book of Proverbs.  This is someone who is luring people away from following the holy practices of God for us in our marriage relationships.  These are praised by Solomon in the book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes like Ecclesiastes 9:9, which reads,

Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life which He has given to you under the sun; for this is your reward in life and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun.

So there is a good woman and a bad woman and of course there is a good man and and bad man, equal time here.  Those who are blind to God put out snares, nets, and chains to trap others to follow their ways instead of what is given to us by God.  The answer is to be pleasing to God which will lead to escape as we look for it.  It reminds us of this passage in 1 Corinthians 10:13, which reads,

No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity.  But God is faithful; He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation He will also provide a way out so that you may be able to bear it.

v.27-29 - "Behold, I have discovered this," says the Preacher, "adding one thing to another to find an explanation, which I am still seeking but have not found.  I have found one man among a thousand, but I have not found a woman among all these.  Behold, I have found only this, that God made men upright, but they have sought out many devices."

Solomon, the Preacher, gives a conclusion to this unexplainable situation.  Even though the final answer is not found he has found honorable men and women who follow after God.  They are few, one in one thousand, but they are out there.  There are those who are not like the woman who is throwing her snare of temptation.  You will not find someone who is not following after God in the group with those who are faithfully devoted to Him.  

Man was made upright by God.  In the beginning God walked with man and woman in the garden and they had intimate fellowship with Him.  But, and it is a big but, they disobeyed God.  They sought out many devices.  They got caught in the snare of the devil to go against what God said and have the fruit of the tree that was forbidden.  Solomon is taking us back to Genesis and the ultimate reason why we see what we see in our world today with its evil.  We see sin and its effects.  We see what happens when we follow the thousands who seek out many devices instead of following the One who followed God's will perfectly.  Let's follow the One today.  Let us pray.

"Lord, help us to minister to those who are hurting over things that are unexplainable.  Help us to see what we can do but keep pointing people to You who has the answer to all of life.  We may not escape pain in this world but we will escape an eternal life without You as we follow after You.  Amen."

Pastor Adam