The School of Wisdom

July 12, 2026|The School of Wisdom|Ecclesiastes 7:1-14

JD Cutler

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This morning we are continuing our Ecclesiastes series entitled, Finding Purpose in Life. As we have been examining this Old Testament wisdom book we have been following the preacher as he examines ‘life under the sun’, which we have defined as ‘life viewed merely from an earthly perspective, 'as though this world is all there is’.

This wise teacher has been guiding us through that examination as someone who has pursued and experienced everything this life has to offer and found that it is astonishingly empty. He has shown us that trying to find purpose and satisfaction in this life strictly from a materialistic, experiential existence is like trying to grab hold of the wind. While there are some good, God-given gifts to be enjoyed in this life, they cannot support lasting satisfaction or provide purpose.

Up to this point the preacher has shown us that we cannot escape the frustrations of life under the sun.

In chapter 7 he begins walking us down a different path. To borrow from a previous illustration of exploring the house of the preacher’s life, he now sits us down and begins teaching us how to live wisely in the difficult world he has spent six chapters exposing

The question is this, since suffering, loss, disappointment, and death are unavoidable, how should the wise person respond to them?

Surprisingly, rather than telling us how to avoid the difficult parts of life, the preacher invites us to receive what these difficult moments teach. The difficult parts of life are not interruptions to God's work in us, they are often His classroom for teaching us wisdom.

The tension of Ecclesiastes is this: wisdom cannot remove the frustrations of life under the sun, but it is always better to live wisely than foolishly within them.

How do we do that?

Beginning in chapter 7, the author of Ecclesiastes is going to help us shape our understanding of what living wisely in a fallen world looks like. He begins with a foundational question: Where does wisdom come from?

That is one of the most important questions we could ever ask. How do I gain wisdom?

James, the half brother of Jesus and the author of the NT book that bears his name says this… James 1:5 “5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”

Now sometimes, I think we understand that gift of wisdom to be some kind of supernatural download.

Right? God, I need wisdom, and we get an upgraded operating system like our cell phones.

But in reality, God very often teaches His deepest wisdom through life's greatest difficulties.

Asking God for wisdom is a little like asking God for patience.

We often think God simply gives patience.

More often, He gives opportunities to become patient. The same is true of wisdom.

This is exactly the subject the preacher begins chapter 7 with today. Let’s read the first fourteen verses of Ecclesiastes 7 and then we will look at four lessons from God’s school of wisdom.

Ecclesiastes 7 ESV

1 A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth. 2 It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. 3Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. 4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. 5 It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools. 6 For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools; this also is vanity. 7 Surely oppression drives the wise into madness, and a bribe corrupts the heart. 8 Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. 9 Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools. 10 Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. 11 Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun. 12 For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it. 13 Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked? 14 In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

As we walk through these f4 verses we are going to look at four lessons. The first is…

I. LESSON ONE: MORTALITY

Notice the pattern of verses 1-4. This is better than that. We are used to this kind of comparison. We often judge the value of things as weighed against other things. That’s not the surprising part. The surprising part is which things the author says are better.

-A good name is better than precious ointment. The idea here seems to be that a good reputation is better than having riches.

-The day of death is better than the day of birth. The day we leave this earth is better than the day we enter it.

-It is better to go to a funeral than a wedding. It is better to go to the house of mourning than feasting.

-Sorrow is better than laughter. To be vexed is better than to be joyful.

What in the world is the preacher talking about?

Is this the kind of pessimistic, dour attitude we should have as believers?

Is he using hyperbole to make some point we don’t yet see?

The key is found in these statements ‘for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.’ and ‘for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.’

The preacher is not glorifying suffering or loss, he is not celebrating death.

He is saying death teaches something feasting never can.

Mortality gives us lessons that nothing else can.

Death has a way of stripping away all the illusions we spend so much time chasing. It reminds us that life is short. Reputation matters. Eternity is real. Today's choices matter.

In all of my years of ministering the word, there is one place where it seems that more often than not people are seriously considering their own mortality and way they are living their lives. It isn’t on a Sunday morning, it isn’t at a wedding, it is almost always at a funeral, a memorial service, a viewing.

When we are confronted with the fragility of life, by the brevity of it, we are confronted with our own mortality and that affects us in profound ways. I have used this particular verse at many funerals. In those times, one of the things I noticed is although if we heard this statement outside of that environment we might be tempted to dispute it, when we are in the house of mourning it makes perfect sense. What sounds outrageous in the routine of everyday life suddenly sounds profoundly true in the house of mourning.

Better is the day of death than the day of birth.

When someone is born, there is of course joy, but there are also many questions. What will he or she be like? Will they grow into a healthy man or woman? Will they be a blessing or a curse to their parents?

At birth, a life is full of possibility. At death, a life has been revealed. Because reputation isn't measured at birth. It's measured at the finish.

The second reason I think that God uses mortality to teach us wisdom is found in the statement ‘for by sadness of face the the heart is made glad’. Who hasn’t been to a funeral of a loved one and as they thought back on their life, although their eyes were full of tears, the hearts were full of joy. For the time they got with them, for the memories, for the funny stories, etc…

It is in those moments we realize that the most important things in life were never the possessions they accumulated or the accomplishments they achieved. We remember their faith. Their character. Their love. Their influence. The legacy they leave behind.

The preacher says a good name is better than precious ointment.

That’s something he has observed over his long life. He goes on to say. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning.

We don’t literally have to be face to face with mortality through loss, to benefit from these lessons. Even if we are not in a season of mourning, we can learn from the brevity of life. If we will keep our mortality in view, we will live our days differently.

This is the sentiment behind David’s plea in Psalm 39:4-5

Psalm 39:4–5 ESV

4 “O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! 5 Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah

Or Moses prayer recorded in Psalm 90.

Psalm 90:12 ESV

12  So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

If we are going to learn to live wisely, the first lesson we need is from facing our own mortality. The second lesson is…

II. LESSON TWO: ENDURANCE

The preacher continues with his pattern of this is better than that.

-Better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

-Better is the end of a thing than its beginning.

-The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

By now, hopefully we can see that he is not simply saying one is better than the other by its nature alone. A rebuke is not inherently better, but rather it is better because of what we can learn from it.

The idea of the song of fools is the encouragement of the foolish to ignore the difficult parts of life, focus on having fun, partying, enjoying yourself.

The world is constantly singing this refrain. Do what makes you happy. Buy the thing. Drink another one. Spend the money. Treat yourself. Right?

Avoid hard things and embrace the things that make you happy.

While that may sound like good advice, the reality is that when that song ends, when you have bought the thing, when you have indulged past where you should have stopped, not only have you done nothing to actually alleviate the difficulties of life, you have most likely created more difficulty for yourself.

The pursuit of comfort rarely teaches wisdom.

It often creates new burdens. The preacher says, it is much better to have someone wise, rebuke you and call you away from foolishness than to join in with the song of fools.

The picture he uses to describe the laughter of fools is not readily understood by people who have grown up without needing fires to cook and keep warm. In the preachers day, fires were an everyday necessity. Therefore you would want your fuel source to be steady and efficient. Thorns could be used, but they were loud, they burned up quickly, and they gave very little heat. The preacher says the laughter of fools is loud and ultimately short lived. It is better to hear a rebuke than the flattery of fools.

In today’s society it is not hard to find people to praise your foolishness. Our culture repeatedly and loudly celebrates lifestyles that are utter foolishness, while claiming that they these people are living their best life, or living authentically. It would be better for you to hear a rebuke from a wise Godly friend, than to be praised by all of the world. One commentator said it this way…

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible Chapter 7

Godly reproof offends the flesh, but benefits the spirit. Fools’ songs in the house of mirth please the flesh, but injure the soul.

To endure reproof and rebuke is the way to gain wisdom.

The preacher continues.

Better is the end of a thing than its beginning. We touched briefly on this already, but in light of the contrast of enduring a rebuke verses enjoying the praise of fools, and his statement about patience, I think the preacher is zooming out and making a broader application. It’s not just life that death is better than birth, it is that often the true satisfaction, the full enjoyment of a thing is experienced at its end, rather than its beginning.

Why is the end often better than the beginning? Because the journey between the beginning and the end is where patience has done its work.

If the Lord chose to take myself or Brittany home today, we would both say that the end was better than the beginning. Why? Because after over 20 years together, I love her in a way that 21 year old John-Daniel couldn’t even understand. I have had thousands of days of ever increasing joy. The end will be better than the beginning, not because the wedding day wasn't wonderful, but because twenty years of faithfulness has produced something that could never have existed on day one. You can probably think of your own examples when the end of a thing is better than its beginning.

We understand this isn’t an absolute principle but it is a common experience nonetheless.

I think the key to understanding the lesson of endurance is the end of verse 8. The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Patient in spirit means slow to anger, while proud in spirit means exalting oneself.

Why is it better to be patient than proud?

Because the patient man endures the rebuke of the wise man. Because the patient man endures the oppression.

The question on our minds sometimes in difficulties is why.

Why would God allow me to go through this?

Why would God do this?

There is nothing wrong with bringing our questions honestly to God.

Scripture is full of faithful people doing exactly that.

But wisdom eventually asks not only, 'Why is this happening?' but also, 'Lord, what are You teaching me through it?

Our hearts can easily drift toward pride when we ask. why would you let this happen to me?

Sometimes that question is less about understanding God's purposes and more about believing we somehow deserved different treatment.

The better, wiser question is how is God forming me to live wisely through this difficulty, and then enduring it faithfully to the end.

If we are going to be shaped by the difficulties of life in God’s classroom, one of the things we must do is to patiently endure the difficulties so that they can shape and form us rather than immediately seeking comfort like the fools.

This is remarkably similar to what James says right before the verse we referenced in the beginning. James 1:2–4 “2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

This brings us to our third lesson…

III. LESSON THREE: PERSPECTIVE

The preacher moves from his structure of comparison of something being better to two direct applications.

Verse 9- Be not quick in your spirit to become angry.

Verse 10- Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?

I grew up watching all of the 80s and 90s martial arts movies. Steven Segal, Jean-Claude Van Damme. As a young teenager, my mom and I’s favorite evening past-time was watching really bad foreign martial arts movies that had been poorly overdubbed in English. You know what I learned from almost everyone of those movies in some way or another. Never fight angry. It almost always plays out the same way, the main character gets angry, and then gets beaten, and then during his training, his master teaches him that anger clouds your judgment and he unlocks some new potential to go on and defeat the bad guy.

Now there is not a lot of biblical truth to be found in B movies, but that one echoes exactly what the Bible says about uncontrolled anger.

Proverbs 29:11 “11 A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back.”

Proverbs 14:29 “29 Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.”

James 1:19–20 “19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

When we are quick tempered, quick to become angry, we lose the very perspective we need to learn from difficulties. The preacher says, anger lodges in the heart of fools. The word translated lodges there is the idea of settling down, remaining. Anger over how we are being treated, anger over our situation, anger over our difficulties. The foolish man or woman allows this to settle down in their hearts.

We've all known people whose identity became wrapped up in their disappointment. Every conversation eventually comes back to how they were mistreated, overlooked, or wronged. Solomon says anger has taken up residence in their heart. This kind of blindness to the purpose of difficulties and even how God is using them to form and shape us, leads to living foolishly.

This is why the preacher says ‘do not be quick in your spirit to become angry’. His second application is a little more involved but nonetheless important.

He says, do not say, Why were the former days better than these?

I have heard this kind of sentiment many times in my work as a Regenesis trainer and coach. Remember when we ran a thriving bus ministry? Remember when we had 600 in Sunday School? Remember when we used to experience this thing or do that thing? Most churches that are stuck have the same kind of attitude. It used to be better than this.

There is nothing wrong with thanking God for what He has done in the past. The danger is when nostalgia keeps us from seeing what God is doing today.

Listen, just so you don’t think I am picking on the older generation, I get it. The older I get the greater the temptation is to feel this. But the preacher says you are not asking this from wisdom. When we look back and long for the good ole days, we can miss the very lesson God is trying to teach us in the present. That’s not wisdom, that’s foolishness.

Apart from a right perspective, we will not experience the full formation that God is working in our lives.

The two greatest dangers to that are being angry about our situation and longing for bygone days.

Two things the preacher warns us against.

In God’s school of wisdom we learn wisdom from contemplating our mortality, we learn wisdom from enduring, and we learn wisdom from keeping the right perspective. All of these lessons ultimately lead us to one final question.

Can we trust the God who is teaching them?

The fourth and final lesson today is…

IV. LESSON FOUR: TRUST

In verses 11 and 12 the preacher praises the advantages of wisdom ultimately answering the question of why should we want God to teach us wisdom. It is an advantage for those living under the sun. It is like protection. Often wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.

This is in line with Ecclesiastes in general. Wisdom is good, even if it’s not the final solution to the futility of life.

Then he says, consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?

He is not talking about crooked verses straight in the moral sense or in what is right of wrong. When we take the totality of what he has said and what he says next, he is talking about the way we experience life unfolding.

I’m sure that most of us would love it if life unfolding in a straight line, we steadily got more wise, better at stewarding what we have, better at relationships, progressively more holy. But that’s not how it goes. We have ups and downs, sometimes it feels like we have to backtrack or that just as we are rounding a corner, we have a set back. The preacher is encouraging us to recognize two things. To understand that it is unfolding exactly as it has been willed, and two, we cannot change it even if we wanted to.

He is telling us to think about how our lives have unfolded so far. The word consider is the idea of looking at with attention in order to discern. Think back over your life.

There is a popular saying that hindsight is 20/20. When we are looking back at an event, we can see way more clearly than when we are experiencing it. As I think back over my life, some of the most valuable, impactful lessons God has taught me have come from what I would consider to be crooked places in my life. Where everything wasn’t easy, everything didn’t make sense, and I just had to put one foot in front of the other. If you have walked with the Lord any length of time, I am sure you can identify with that as well.

So what do we do? How do we remain wise in the midst of a sometimes crooked life?

14 In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

Whether you are in a time of prosperity or adversity, God is sovereign over both. Both become instruments in His hands for our good.

Each one is a gift. One of the refrains of Ecclesiastes is that when God gives us good days or good things, enjoy them, praise him for them. But also that all of our days will not be good in this life under the sun.

Once there was a man who had experienced a life of blessing. He was one of the wealthiest men in his country. He had a large family and riches seemingly beyond measure. Truly for decades and decades he had experienced blessing and increased year over year. Then in a span of a day, his adversaries came against him all at once and stripped him of his possessions and a natural disaster wiped out all of his kids. While he was mourning the loss of his children, he fell greatly ill, covered in sores from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. So pitiful was his days that his own wife said, you should curse God and die. If you haven’t gotten it by now, I am talking about Job.

Do you remember what he said? As he was sitting in a pile of ashes, covered in painful sores, mourning his children? You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”

Job identifies the foolishness of gladly receiving good from God, but not considering that the difficulty is also from God. When we learn to trust the sovereignty of God, we will grow in our ability to live wisely no matter what the day brings.

We have said it many times, but yet again, we see Ecclesiastes presenting life as it is, not as we wish it were.

Your life will not be filled with all good days, and one day you will die. From your birth to your death, your days will unfold exactly as God wills.

When we learn wisdom from God’s classroom, for the believer, your difficulty is never merely happening to you but for you. It is one of God's instruments for forming you. For your maturity, for your good.

We can’t always see it and that’s why the most important lesson is to trust the one who is unfolding your days.

The reality is that God often accomplishes His deepest work in us through the very experiences we would never choose for ourselves.

Each one of us needs wisdom.

Each one of us will only get it from God.

Each one of us will have to orient ourselves in such a way that we learn from what God is teaching.

Ecclesiastes 7 gives us a great framework.

1) Realize and embrace that life is short and that you are going to have a last day here on earth.

2) Embrace the reality that hardship shapes you.

3) Hold the right perspective on hardship so that it shapes you correctly.

4) Trust God’s providence and his timing.

Wherever you are today in that process, the invitation from Ecclesiastes 7 is to respond appropriately.

Maybe that means letting go of the anger that has taken up residence in your heart.

Maybe that means embracing your mortality and seriously considering your life.

Maybe that means asking for prayer from a brother or sister for a right perspective.

Maybe that means stopping being angry at God for your circumstance and start trusting Him in it.

Maybe that means finally understanding that what the preacher observed in his day is still true today.

That on the darkest, most horrible day of human history, when the innocent son of God was ruthlessly nailed to a Roman cross, God was accomplishing the most beautiful salvation for all those who would trust him.

And friend, if God accomplished the greatest good in history through the greatest evil ever committed, then He can be trusted with the crooked places of your life. I pray that wherever you are, you will not leave here today the same as you came.

Let us pray.