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Welcome back guys. God bless. We're glad that you're here. We're glad you took some time out of your schedule to come visit our channel. I hope this message blesses you. If it does do us a favor, share it with somebody. Now we took a break last week. We're doing a study through the book of Ecclesiastes and what you're about to watch here. We're going to go through chapters six and seven and it's interesting because what we've been saying all along here is that Solomon is basically doing a quest by experiment. He set out to know wisdom, to know the madness that's in the world. And we've learned so far that you're not going to find happiness in the four W's. You're not going to find it in the wine. You're not going to find it in work. You're not going to find it with women and you're not going to find it with wealth. So without God, all of these things lead to vanity under the sun. And in this sermon, we do some biblical math and we add two verses together. Okay. Ecclesiastes chapter number six, verse one and chapter seven, verse number 11. You're going to come up with this. We need wisdom from beyond the sun if we're going to understand life under the sun. Okay. Watch the sermon, watch this message, how we unpack that and I think it'll be a blessing to you. God bless. All right. Amen. Ecclesiastes chapter number six. Like I said during the announcements, we're going to make it all the way through chapter number seven. But before we start, we'll go ahead and do an overview here. And so go to chapter number seven real quick. And let's, let's start with a little bit of an overview here. So I'm going to title the sermon this evening. Oppression drives madness. Oppression drives madness. We'll get to that here in a second. But before we start, look at verse number 25 of chapter number seven. So we went over this when we did the intro several weeks ago, but look what he says. So Solomon says, I applied mine heart to know and to search and to seek out wisdom. And the reason of things and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness. Okay. And so be based off of that statement and a lot of things that we've read, we said that Solomon basically writes Ecclesiastes as a quest by experiment. So essentially he set the word of God aside and has looked through the lens of an unsaved person at life. Okay. Remember his wives later in his life turned his heart away from God. And that basically caused a lot of the things that you're seeing in these chapters. So real quickly, let's look at four of the bad W's that Solomon gets wrapped up in. Number one, go back to chapter number six. I'll read all four of them for you. And then we'll just kind of look at some verses that correspond to these. And so remember in Solomon's quest for experiments, okay, he basically applied his heart to know the madness of folly and all of the dark things that go on. And he looks at life through the lens of an unsafe person. And he basically tries to put his trust for a certain period of time into wealth, into work, into women and into wine. Okay. And you see that come out of all of this book here. But look down if you would at verse number one of chapter six. So it says there is an evil which I have seen under the sun and it is common among men. Now look what he says next. A man to whom God has given riches, wealth and honor, so that he wanted nothing for a soul of all that he desires. Yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it. This is vanity and it is an evil disease. So when you read that, it seems like, well, what's the whole point of working? Why work hard? Why do these things? If perhaps I could get to a point in my life where I can't reap the benefits, I'm just going to pass all this stuff on to somebody who's just going to abuse it and it's just going to go by the wayside. Okay. And of course you're going to get the answers to these. So in essence here, what he's saying is that basically what's the point of me storing up all this wealth if I'm not going to be able to enjoy it if life is temporary. Look down, skip down to verse number seven. Okay. So that takes care of the wealth aspect. Look at number seven and you'll see work. He says, all the labor of man is for his mouth and yet the appetite is not filled. Okay. And so of course you hear these things out in the world, right? You get that disgruntled guy at work. It's just like, ah, well, what's the point of making money? What's the point of working? I've been working for 40 years and you know, I'm still hungry the next day. Okay. There is a reason why you're reading this here. This isn't meant to be read to be like, Oh yeah, what is the point? You know, and to just give you anxiety. You have to understand that the book of Ecclesiastes written by the wisest man to ever live is trying to teach you something here. Okay. He's basically saying, Hey, I applied my heart to know wisdom, to know madness, to know folly, to know all of these different things. I delve deep into the world so that you don't have to, so that you don't have to have that curiosity, which eventually we all know kills the cat. Okay. Go to chapter seven again. So we said that Solomon basically in his quest by experiment, he looks at life as you know, is wealth going to make me happy? Is work going to make me happy? And of course, are women going to make me happy? Will wine make me happy? Real quickly, look at verse 26. He says, and I find more bitter than death. Okay. Chapter seven verse 26 and I find more better than death. The woman whose heart is snares and nets and her hands as bands who so police of God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be taken by her. So look, you know, when people make fun of me and my rhyming titles looks, even Solomon did it. Okay. That's where I got it from. It's all good. Now keep your place right here in chapter seven. We're going to be right back here, but go to chapter two. So I just want to remind you one more thing all the way back in chapter number two, look at, look at verse three. So again, he says, I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine yet acquainting my heart with wisdom and to lay hold on folly till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven, all the days of their life. So chapter six, really, it kind of reads rough. It's like, oh man, this is depressing. Chapter seven is like another interlude. You get to see the preacher come out and he gets to expound what we're going to call four wisdom statements and let's just review them here real quick. So go back to chapter number seven and the first one that you're going to see is that will wisdom compels you to hate oppression. Okay. The more wisdom that you acquire, the more you're going to hate oppression, the more it's going to bother you. Okay. Look down at verse number seven. Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad and a gift destroyeth the heart. Okay. So we had four bad things that start with w right. We have the wealth, the work, the women, the wine, you know, and Solomon saying that when I applied mine heart to these things, I saw vanity. That's all I could see under the sun. I saw vanity. Life was empty. So people put their faith and trust into those things and they give themselves over to those things and never makes them happy. Okay. It might make you look at them on social media like, wow, they've really got it all put together. Man, they're just partying. They're making lots of money. They're doing all this stuff. Okay. But what you have to know on the inside is those people are dying. They have anxiety, they have depression. They are not as happy as you might think they are. Okay. So the first wisdom statement, we're going to come back and unpack these, but it's basically wisdom compels you to hate oppression. This is why when you guys talk to people, they're like, oh, I'm a Christian too. We're, we're, we're, we're, we're the same, right? And you start talking about things that are really going on and they're just like, oh, you know, I don't really like to discuss those things. Also conspiracy stuff and you know, all the evil in the world, you know, then let's just put that aside. We don't like to talk about that because that's negative. Okay. When you have those conversations with people, you're probably thinking to yourself, like, why doesn't that bother you? Why doesn't that enrage you like it does us to people that get upset when they look at what's going on in the world? I feel like a church like ours is the perfect home, the perfect remedy for them because we hate that stuff, right? And this is a place where you can come to and you can just vent and be like, yeah, this is terrible. This is evil. This is wicked. Why? Because we also have the antidote to those things. Okay. Now the next one here is going to come from verse 10, which is that wisdom compels you to not dwell in the past. So look at verse number 10. He says, say not thou, what is the cause that the former days were better than these for thou does not inquire wisely concerning this. Okay. So, you know, it's fun for me to kind of talk and reminisce about like when I was younger, about how life was simpler when I was a teenager, you know, in high school, we didn't have smartphones. We didn't have ways for people to just leash you up and just constantly trying to get at you, you know, send any messages. And I thought that was cool. Jessica and I got to know each other based off of writing letters, handwriting letters in the mail. When I was in the military, she'd send letters and we'd send letters back and forth. There were no text messages and yeah, I use text today. I'm not doubting that too much. But here would be the mistake is if I started just focusing solely on the past and how we were maybe happier than we didn't have the problem with the sodomites. Yeah, those times are good. But we can't change the past. We can't go back there and dwell there. We're here now. And so we need to make the most of it now. And so that's what he's saying here is that wisdom is going to compel you to not dwell in the past. Be thankful that you had some blessings. Be thankful that it was good and all well back then, but don't dwell on it. Don't let that ruin your here and now. Number three is going to come from verse 11 and it's going to tell us that wisdom with inheritance is better than wisdom alone. Look at verse number 11 says, wisdom is good with an inheritance and by it, there is profit to them that see the sun. And last but not least is verse 12, which is very simple. It's basically a lot of what we talked about this morning. And that is wisdom is a defense. Look what it says right off the bat. Verse 12 for wisdom is a defense and money is a defense, but the excellency of knowledge is that wisdom giveth life to them that have it. Okay. The rest of the chapter here in chapter 70 is going to explain what that is and what that looks like. So now that we've got that kind of overview, okay, he can trust wealth. Okay. Putting your faith and trust in wealth works women wine with these four wisdom statements between chapter six and seven and really the entire book. So let's do a little bit of biblical math before we go on here. Go back to chapter number six one more time. Look down at verse number one. He says again, there is an evil, which I have seen under the sun and it is common among men. So there's an evil under the sun and he keeps saying this over and over and over again throughout the book of Ecclesiastes. Now go to chapter seven and look down at verse number 11 one more time. Okay. Remembering that phrase under the sun. Okay. So there's an evil under the sun. Okay. Chapter six clarifies that. Now look at chapter seven, the preachers interlude we'll call it. Wisdom is good with an inheritance and by it there is look at this prophet to them that see the sun. So when we do our biblical math, we could say this, we need wisdom from beyond the sun to properly understand how to live under the sun. Okay. Let me say that again. We need wisdom from beyond the sun. If we're going to properly understand how to live life under the sun. Okay. That's the point that so many people miss. A lot of people in your life and in my life, they're stuck in chapter six. Why do this? I'm going to give up. I have this sucks. This is terrible. This is heartbreaking, blah, blah, blah. You know, life is just terrible, whatever. Okay. And they turn to all sorts of things they think are going to make them happy. Okay. Chapter seven. If you really pay attention, it gives you the remedy. It gives you the antidote to overcome this type of depression that is under the sun. Okay. Chapter six is really depression. Chapter seven is how to break free from the oppression that that causes. So let's go through this chapter here real quick. We're going to kind of blaze through chapter six. So we already looked at verse number one. Let's skip down here to verse number three. So Solomon says, if a man beget a hundred children and live many years so that the days of his years be many and his soul be not filled with good and also that he have no burial. I say that an untimely birth is better than he. Okay. So an untimely birth, an improper birth. He's saying that is better than this individual here who's had many years, many children and his soul wasn't filled with good. Look at verse four for he cometh in with vanity and departeth in darkness and his name shall be covered with darkness. I mean, he's not going to be remembered anymore. All of his labor, you know, and we talked about that. So he acknowledges the fact that, you know, what's the point of life because people live, they build this legacy, they build wealth, they acquire things and then their kids just do what they want with it. And nobody remembers them a hundred years from now. And verse six or verse, uh, verse number five, he says, moreover, he hath not seen the sun nor known anything. This hath more rest than the other. And in verse six, he says, yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, okay, this is hyperbole here. He's not saying that somebody actually lives 1000 years. Okay. He's saying, yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, yet hath he seen no good. Do not all go to one place. Okay. So he's bringing up the fact, there's one event that happenedeth to them all. That is death. Okay. But one group of people just looks at life as their one and only shot and are just like, hey, after this, we're gone. There's nothing beyond. We don't know. No one knows. And so that's it. Hey, that was the view that my dad had had. He told me that at a very young age, I remember very vividly, very clearly asking him what happens when a person dies. And he said, it's lights out. That's it. You're done. It's game over. And my heart sank as like a four year old kid. Okay. I was just like, this is terrible. Like there's gotta be more. And then thank God my mom came along and was like, well, there's angels and there's God. And eventually God sent people in my life, which led me to the gospel and led me to the truth. And obviously that's the next group of people which are in the minority of all people that go on to eternity. But that's not what this is about. Look at verse seven. He says, all the labor of a man is for his mouth and yet the appetite is not filled. So again, it goes back to like what we talked about this morning. Okay. Life is temporary. The world is temporary. We need to learn how to use the world wisely as opposed to what? As opposed to loving the world, which causes the world to have us unwisely. Verse number eight, for what hath the wise more than the fool? What hath the poor that knoweth to walk before the living? Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of desire. This is also vanity and vexation of spirit. Verse nine there, he's basically saying, you know, better is the sight of the eyes. Better is what you can clearly see and understand in the here and now than just this wandering thought of, well, in the future, this and the future, we can do that. Hey, it's better to have a grasp on reality and truth that you are facing with right now so that you can make life better. Look at verse 10, he says, that which has been is named already and it is known that it is man. Neither may he contend with him that is mightier than he. I'm going to do a sermon on that in the future. So I'm not going to spend too much time there, but look at verse number 11, seeing there be many things that increase vanity, what is man the better? So basically in other words, can you put your hope and trust in man and what he can bring you? You're just all hooked on what Elon Musk is going to be able to do for you. Or Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates or, or Donald Trump or anybody can be politician for that matter. Any rich person. Okay. All they're really going to be able to provide you is more vanity. That's basically what he's saying. Okay. And there's a better route. There's a better way. There's somebody who can provide you with much more so that you can properly enjoy life and the life after this. Okay. Which is very obvious when we understand wisdom, look at verse 12, for who knoweth what is good for man in this life. All the days of his vain life, which he spendeth as a shadow for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun. So you're just kind of left there with that kind of depressing statement. You know, just what, what's up with man. Now you go over to chapter number seven and let's go through this here because this is the antidote to the anxiety of chapter six. Okay. So verse number one, Solomon starts off right away. He says a good name is better than precious ointment and the day of death than the day of one's birth. So if you strive to have a good name, now how are we as Christians going to obtain a good name? Okay. Well, obviously by being saved, having your name written in the book of life, I mean, that's step number one, but really what you do for other people, the Bible's clear. It is better to give than to receive. So when you have a giving mindset, okay, your, your, your, your goal is a, Hey, I want to preach a sermon because I want to give truth. I want to go soul winning because I want to give truth. I want to read the Bible so that I can give truth. I can give help. I can give wisdom. I can give knowledge. Okay. That is going to increase your name around other people. And of course the day of your death in that point is going to be better than your birth because you've lived, you've had experience wisdom. Verse two, it is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting. For that is the end of all men and the living will lay it to his heart. Now that might seem counterintuitive to it for a lot of people because you're like, wait a second here. I thought laughter was good for the heart. Bible's clear on that. And it is. Okay. But what Solomon saying here is, believe it or not, there is benefit in going to the house of mourning. There is benefit in certain situations. For example, going to a funeral, we're hearing about somebody who's passed on, you know, and listening to their story and seeing that in real life. This is something that I see quite often out in this community. I've seen people who have, I've known, I've done work for and I've seen their spouse and I'm like, Hey, you know, where's so-and-so and they're just like, Oh, I'm sorry to report, you know, took the fourth shot. He's done. I've told you guys that has happened to me or, or not, you know, just I've seen people that are up in their upper nineties and they've just passed on and the spouse is still there. See it all the time. I see that so much. I'm just like, wow. I mean, I've only been here for five and a half years and I can't tell you how many people, how many married couples that I've seen where they've lost each other just because of circumstances in life, or it was just the end of life and just talking with them and seeing the sorrow on their faces, that transfers to me, that transfers to you. When you see that in life, what does that do? That causes you to reflect on your own life that causes you to take a minute to take a mental break into pauses and say, Hey, you know, what if tomorrow was my last day? What if next year that was it? You know it, when you have that mentality, you start to think that way. It causes you to want to get better. It causes you to want to do more. And so that's Solomon's point here. It's better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting. That is the end of all men and the living will lay it to his heart. Okay? So you're going to lay these things to your heart when you see them. When you go to a funeral, it's going to help you. Look at verse 3, sorrow is better than laughter for by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better. So again, this is something science probably hasn't even attempted to prove yet, but I promise you, there will be an article, if there isn't already, that comes out, you know, scientists are now finding some benefits to people after they go through tragedy, after they go through sorrow. It's like, yeah, Solomon told you that more than a thousand to two thousand years ago. Okay? I don't know the exact time, but it's a long time. The Bible is always ahead of science. It's always ahead of man because God wrote it. Verse 4, the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. Now, there's nothing wrong with obviously going to a banquet, going to a feast. There's nothing wrong with laughing. Okay? It does bring joy and it actually does provide health benefits. The point is, and you're going to find this in this chapter, is balance. Okay? Don't be that person that's just always got to pit sides. You know, oh, you know, you can only eat steak and no pork. You can only eat chicken and it's just like balance, my friend. Balance. Okay? Everybody, every single Christian that I have ever met that has come in and said, I'm one hundred percent. I mean, from the moment I wake up, it's Bible, it's hymns, it's just church. Twenty four seven fails. One hundred percent of them. One hundred percent. One hundred percent. Do I need to say that again? One hundred percent of them fail. Why is that? Because there's no balance. People get worn out. You are loud. You are allotted laughter in life. You're allowed to take some time off. You are allowed comforts in this life. The idea always goes back to balance. Okay, don't put your heart all in one basket here. You know, there are people that spend time over in the sorrow house, right? What do we call them? Call them Goths. We're the Goth people. Anybody go to high school with the Gothic people? Everything's about death and sorrow and destruction and just doom and gloom. It's like, give me a break, man. And who's ever seen the Joker? Okay, the guy who everything's a joke. I mean, he's never serious. You just slap him across the face, although it was weak, and you just make a joke out of it. You know, it's just nothing serious. Both of those people are foolish. The medicine and the real wisdom is to understand the balance of these things. So verse four, the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. Verse five, it is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools. This next verse here. There is a certain female politician that will probably cross your mind when we read it. Okay, look at it. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool, this also is vanity. You got it? I don't even got to say it, right? Is it VP, the vice president? You already know. Okay, perfect illustration there. Look at verse number seven. It says, surely oppression maketh a wise man mad and a gift destroyeth the heart. Okay, so why is it? Why is it that wise people get so upset when they hear bills being passed and agendas from the government and all of these things coming out? It's because we understand that in Christ brings liberty, right? We understand that liberty is better than oppression. We get that. It makes sense to us. Okay, but these people out in town that are barking for communism, you know, just begging for it, just, oh, you know, we need to get rid of free speech because there's people that are so mean like that Pastor Jones and his friends are so mean and we just need to, you know, we're not against free speech, just their speech. If we could just get them out of here, life would be so much better. Okay, those people are trying to push an oppression and it drives us nuts. It makes us mad. It makes us extremely angry. But the idea is, can you control that? Okay, can you control that? It's okay to be upset. It's okay to be driven almost to the point of madness. But can you destroy it? And about these oppressors, one of the things that they will do oftentimes is present a gift. This is how they get votes, right? They stand up on a platform. They start saying, hey, you know, we promise the Mexican voter this. We promise the black voters this. We promise you guys this. We're going to cancel college debt for everyone except for Pastor Jones. He's still got to pay his, but, you know, which is ridiculous. I keep asking them why they haven't canceled mine yet. And they keep kicking me off YouTube for it. I can't seem to make sense of it. But understanding they do that because it destroys most people's hearts. Okay, you take a person, you start oppressing them. Initially, they're going to get upset. But all you got to do is just give them a little something. Give them a little food, give them a little treat, give them a little present. Oh, they care about us. It blinds the eyes. And then the next thing you know, they're yours. You could just get them and pound them into the ground. That's what Solomon's saying here. Look at verse eight. It says, better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof. And the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit, of course. I'm going to break those down into a full sermon by themselves. So I don't want to bother that too much. But we all know that being proud in spirit is not good. Okay, we talked about that this morning. If we're going to be wise, what is that going to drive us to do? It's going to drive us to hate, evil, pride and arrogance. Okay, and the more you understand that, the more you see the oppression around you. So look down at verse number nine. It says, be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry. For anger resteth in the bosom of fools. So again, this just keeps going back to that oppression, okay? It drives us nuts. It drives us to absolute madness. However, however, we need to control that anger. Like I keep saying, control that anger. It's okay to be angry, but you don't want to be hasty in the spirit and just flying off the handle at every single thing that comes across your way, because it causes foolish reactions, foolish words and things of that nature. Verse number 10, say not thou what is the cause of the former days? I'm sorry, what is the cause that the former days were better than these? For thou does not inquire wisely concerning this. So again, this begins another wisdom statement here. Okay, we don't want to get stuck into this mental pattern of just dwelling in the past. Man, things are so much better than they probably were. They definitely were. I'll bet if any of us could take a time machine and go back to the 50s, we'd be happy and we might not even want to come back. Okay, until the 60s started, we'd be like, ah, you know, keep going back and back and back. You know, it's hard to say, but life seemed simpler back then. You didn't have the crazy, oppressive, New World Order agenda knocking on our doorsteps. Now, you didn't have, I mean, yeah, I was in the works. Okay. But for the most part, people just live their lives. You can walk over to your neighbor's house and be like, hey, Bob, what's going on? Oh, come in here and eat some dinner. You know, now you walk by your neighbor's house and looking at you trying to steal something from me, you know, just hurry up and get out of here. And that's kind of the attitude that we have today. Oh, well, that's what we're stuck with. The only thing that we can do as God's people is try to make it better for us. Right. That's it. That's all that we can do. So to just spend all of our time and our energy dwelling on the success of the past and how are we going to bring that back and, you know, you probably not because we know what we know that the tribulation is coming, the tribulation is on its way and we just have to accept that. Okay, we have to accept that time needs to advance so that God can finally come back and put an end to all of this madness. Verse number 11. Again, wisdom is good with an inheritance and by it there is profit to them that see the sun. So again, we need wisdom from beyond the sun. If we're going to live and really truly flourish in this life under the sun on this planet, who's ever seen somebody who's wise, but they don't have much. They don't ever use that wisdom. They've acquired it over life. They've gotten older in life and they've just been kind of like, yeah, you know, and they say something to you and you're like, wow, like, that's crazy. I never thought about that. That's such a great idea. That's going to really help me and bless me in life. Then you look at them and like, good, because I ain't going to use it. They're just kind of done. You know, that happens. There are people like that. Okay, that's why it's like, hey, wisdom with inheritance. Use the wisdom that God gives you to acquire things, to acquire unto yourselves rewards and treasures in heaven where moth and rust doth not corrupt. Verse 12, for wisdom is a defense and money is a defense. But the excellency of knowledge is that wisdom giveth life to them that have it. Okay, and so again, acquiring real life in this life. That's the idea. Salvation, the gospel. Another thing that you're going to find throughout the Book of Ecclesiastes and all throughout the New Testament is there are questions. There are things insinuated that only the New Testament answers. Okay, and so the solution to all of this is very clear as well. It is also the gospel. That is the life that he's talking about here. And he alludes to that in verse 20, which we're going to get to. Look at verse 13. Consider the work of God. See, now he's bringing up the Lord. Consider the work of God for who can make that straight which he hath made crooked, which, like I said last week, this is why we're against these programs that try to reform the alphabet people. Hey, God's made them crooked. Guess what? You're not going to make them straight. So just stay away from them. Plain and simple. But in context of the passage, this life has so many things that are corrupt, so many things that are crooked. Okay, all you have to do is just open your eyes, just talk to people, just go out, talk to people. There are problems. There are problems everywhere. There are problems in your house. There are problems at your work. There are problems in this church. There are problems with your family. There are problems every single place that you go. And guess what? Only God can make things straight. Prayer is the answer. So we don't want to get bogged down with trying to correct every single thing that's crooked because we're never going to do it, especially out there in the world. We can police ourselves in here. We can take care of our families. We've got the word of God. But you know what? When it comes to out there. Okay, this is a fallen world and it's a crooked world. It's a perverse world. And it's going to be that way until Jesus comes back. Verse 14, in the day of prosperity, be joyful. But in the day of adversity, consider God also hath set the one over against the other to the end that man should find nothing after him. There are certain things in this life that God has intended to stay secret until he comes back and they will not be revealed. Look at verse 15. This is all things have I seen in the days of my vanity. There is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness. And there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness. I'm sure we can all relate to this. I'm sure we all have an example of this. So somebody that we know that's been attacked, somebody we know that's saved, that's just under this unjust thumb of somebody else, whether it be their employer, whether it be somebody in their family or somebody external. And it's like, man, we're here reading the Bible. We're praying. We're standing on truth. We're doing what we're supposed to be doing. And we just got the enemy coming after us. Whereas people out here that are blaspheming God, shaking their fists up at the sky, you know, just doing things contrary to God, it seems like they're living long lives. It's like, why is George Soros still alive? Why is Bill Gates still alive? Why are these people still around? You know, there was a rumor that went around not too many months ago. And I was getting messages from people like, did you hear the news there was an earthquake today, Soros died. And then like a couple of days later, I was like, oh, it was a hoax. I mean, because these people are evil and we hear what they're doing and they're just openly talking about it and they're just telling you we're coming for you. We want to take away your protein. We want to take away your raw milk. We want to take away your vitamins. We want to take everything from you. We want to link you up to this computer system so that when you go to the store, we tell you what to buy, what to think, what to wear, how to dress. We want to absolutely control everything that you do. From the most minute movements of your body. Look, I'm telling you, there are people that satanic in our government today in this world that if they could control when you rise up and sit down, how you dress yourself, how you breathe, how you chew your food, they would do it in a heartbeat. I'm telling you, these people are crazy. OK, I'm telling you, oppression drives madness. It's true. But OK, we have to understand something here. Look at verse 16. Be not righteous over much, neither make thyself over wise. Why shouldest thou destroy thyself? So we don't have the same level of wisdom that Solomon had. OK, God gave him that. And that was enough for him to actually do this quest by experiment and not die prematurely. When we try the same thing that Solomon does, we're like, you know, I'm going to really dig into this Alex Jones stuff and I'm just going to go down these rabbit holes so deep and I'm going to be the smartest on all of this wickedness, it could possibly end your life. You could die from that because there is such darkness and such anxiety with those things in such deep satanic madness that it will literally cause your heart to fail, OK? And so that's what he's saying. Understand there's evil in the world, but we serve a greater God. We serve the God that can take us and shelter us and protect us from that stuff. And one of the quick bits of advice you're given here is, hey, be careful not to be righteous over much. Don't keep going down these rabbit holes. Don't make yourself over wise, OK? Because the more you learn, the more harsh truth you, you know, you're exposed to, it does cause some pain. Look at verse 17. Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish. OK, why shouldest thou die before thy time? So, again, be careful about learning too deeply of the plans that these people have, OK? Because it can really terrify you. Now, we've got to know what's going on. We have to have foresight. We have to be able to prove what is acceptable unto God. But I've seen people and this has been a long time. I've seen people just really go down some of these rabbit holes and even get out of church. And it's just like, you know, you go too far down. It's just like everything's a conspiracy. This pulpit's a conspiracy. This cup's a conspiracy. My job history is a conspiracy. Oh, Pastor Jones, a government agent, blah, blah, blah. You know, just all these things just start to, to bubble up into this unreasonable mental lie. And it just, it just overtakes people and causes them to do things that they normally wouldn't do. OK, now look at verse 18. Here's something that is good, OK? It is good that thou shouldest take hold of this. Yea, also from this withdraw not thine hand. For he that feareth God shall come forth of them all. Again, it goes back to fearing God. That is the theme for today. OK, how do we avoid being over much wickedness, being over much righteous and really going down this quest by experiment that Solomon did? Well, by fearing the Lord and understanding that this is the source here. This is where we go to to learn evil, to learn wickedness. And if it goes beyond this, we don't need to know. I don't know the exact details of how a witch does her séances. I don't need to know that. I don't need to know the details that these rappers and rockers and, you know, people of Hollywood influence. I don't need to know the exact rituals that they do, OK, to get their status. All I have to know is that people sell their souls to the devil because the Bible tells you that's what they do. People sell themselves to work evil in the sight of God all the time. Jezebel did it. All kinds of people in the Bible have done that. OK, but when you really just start to focus on the depths of that wickedness, it does something to you and it's not wise. OK, but it is wise to know that it does happen because you have the opposite of that, right? You have the other extreme where people are like, that's not true. People don't do stuff like that. And they're just fine. And there might they might be Christians, too. You know, little Nas X, he's saved. Somebody told me that he's saved. He's a Christian. He turned from it's like the guys a flaming sodomite. OK, you know, get some wisdom here and understand. You know, lay hold that those people are just evil. Write them off. You're good, man. It's all good. You don't have to dwell on it and, you know, reap all these unhealthy benefits. Look at verse 19. Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty men, which are in the city. And we've done sermons on that in the past. It's very clear. OK, we need to heap wisdom onto ourselves. It's better than ten mighty men. OK, think about this. Our church does more than Delta Force. Our church literally, you know, any church like ours, we do more than the specialist of special forces in the world, because what we do has eternal consequences. When you give the gospel, that rings throughout eternity. When you go get somebody saved, that lasts forever. OK, that's a treasure that nobody can take away. That's something you will see when you take your last breath here. You will know that, hey, there are rewards for that. That mattered. And, of course, that could take us off into a whole other direction. So let's look at verse 20 here. OK, he says this. This is actually a good verse to have on hand. Sometimes it comes in handy out-souling when people maybe are a little bit dispensational and they're like, well, back in the Old Testament, people couldn't sin, they had to do, and if they did, they had to do the offering right away or they'd go straight to hell. Look at what Solomon says here. For there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not. OK, for there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not. So when someone comes into your life via YouTube, a short, an Instagram thing, whatever it is, OK, and they seem like they got it all put together. Let me tell you a little secret. They still sin. I don't care if they say their names, Pastor Joel Osteen or Mr. Ray Comfort or Kirk Cameron or whoever. I don't care who it is. Oh, no, no, no, no. The Holy Ghost came inside of me and I've earned sinless perfection and I turned from I don't sin no more. OK, this crowd seems to be really springing up lately. Hey, they're out here. We're talking to them. We're running into them. Guess what? You still sin. You still sin. You're lying to me right now. You're lying to yourself. You're lying to God. Solomon said, for there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sin. If not, everybody sins. Everybody. OK, this is so important for us to know. For so many reasons. OK, and one of the bigger ones is when somebody comes up to you and says, well, man, in the Old Testament, they had to rough. They had to put away all their sins or boom, trapdoor straight to hell. It's like, have you even read the Old Testament? Do you not know anything? OK, that is not true. Why would he say this if turning from sins was a requirement in the Old Testament to go to heaven, right, because what do the Dispos say? What do they say? They say that after the rapture, the Jew takes over, right, the chosen ones, and then they have to bring back the sacrifices. And this is so great. And guess what? Then they got to repent of their sins. Then everybody in the tribulation period, they got to turn from their sins. Yeah, they got to turn from their sins. And then that's how they get saved. So you're lucky. That's garbage. That's absolute crap. This verse smashes that. People have been saved since day one, the same way they're going to get saved on day end. OK, it is through putting your faith and trust in God. That's it. Becoming born again. That's the same thing. Look, God has always had it that way. The only difference between now and the Old Testament is that now we call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're back then. Obviously, they called upon the name of the God of heaven and earth. It's the same God. They just didn't know him by Jesus. Look at verse 21. Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken. So he's going to hop back on the suppression thing a little bit. He says, also take no heed unto all words that are spoken lest thou hear thy servant curse thee. This is true. Look, I'm telling you right now, you know, this is so true. If you suspect someone's talking trash about you, let me just give you a little secret. They are. If you suspect a little bit somebody don't like you, they don't. It's just what it is. They don't like you. So the wisdom here in this is to just accept that and maybe just try to make it better from there, because if you set out on this detective mission to find out, you know, if somebody's curse you or somebody said this at home, they said it, you're going to hear it. You're going to get that confirmation. You're going to get better. You're going to get upset. And it's just going to make matters worse. OK, here's the remedy, though. Here's how we get past this. Verse 22, for oftentimes also look at this, also thine. What does thine mean? It means yours. OK, ours, us, thine, singular. This is you. This is me. For oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise has cursed others. OK, so when you stop and think about that, when you're going through this, right, you're just like, man, I feel like there's some tension here. Who's ever walked into a room and just felt tension? Yeah, we got one, two. We got 100 percent compliant. Everybody's done that. OK, that's a real thing. OK, you can feel that. When you feel that, the best thing for you to do is to try to just make it better. Don't dwell on it and be like, oh, I'm going to find out what that person, I know that person's talking trash. When I first got into ministry, like, I think God's gifted me. Like, I got it. Like, I know. OK, like, I just know. And I've been right on this so many times. Like, I just know when someone's got some beef with me. I could just see it all over your face. I know you. Look, I just know. And I've never been wrong on this because God has given me this as a gift. I just believe this and I know this. And when I first started this, I was like, I'm going to find out somebody said. And I got a ways of finding out. And I'll tell you what, it hurts. It's just like I start getting mad. I'm like, I'm going to preach this, man, I'm going to blast this person. And then I learned this. I read this. I'm like, wait a second. I've said the same stuff about that person, you know, and then I feel stupid. I'm like, OK, now I can get myself recalibrated or get back on track. That's the wisdom in this. OK, again, don't dwell and don't seek to just find out every little thing. People say that's bad about you. They're talking bad. There were those people, there's problems, right? We say that all the time. Look at verse 23. All this have I proved by wisdom. I said I will be wise, but it was far from me. So he's admitting to us his quest by experience wasn't the wisest thing to do. OK, because of his wisdom, he was able to escape it and write these things for us. But it wasn't wise. It wasn't a good thing that he did. And he's admitting that everybody makes mistakes. He's telling you for there is not a just man upon earth to do with good. And sin is not. He's admitting this right here. Verse 24, look at this. That which is far off and exceeding deep, who can find it out? There's another one of those questions. You go read Ephesians chapter two on your own time. Very clear, very clear answer. It's God. God is the only one that can find all this stuff that is deep, that is deeply rooted and far off and settled down. Look at verse 25. I applied mine heart to know and to search and to seek out wisdom and the reason of things and to know the wickedness of folly, even the foolishness and madness. So guess what? We don't have to because he did it. OK, we don't have to. He took care of it. He's got it. And we can learn from his quest. Verse 26, we're almost done. And I find more bitter than death the woman. You wonder, what's he bashing on women here? Not all women. There's this look, if anybody can say this, this dude can say it. Seven hundred wives, three hundred concubines. He knows what he's talking about here. And I find more bitter than death, the woman whose heart is snares and nets in her hands as bands, who so pleaseth God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be taken by her. And so this really deserves its own sermon. So I'm just going to read it for what it is. You guys know it really doesn't need a lot of interpretation. OK, there are women out there that will eat you for breakfast, lunch and dinner and cause you years. I'm talking years of internal pain. You better be careful. Tell your guy, tell people that you know, there's a search of women. There are some you need to stay away from. OK, and serving God and loving God ensures that you're not going to go down that path because God will keep you from her. One more time. I find more bitter than death, the woman whose heart is snares and nets in her hands as bands, or who so pleaseth God shall escape from her. OK, how do we please God? By doing our own thing, by going to a new evangelical church and just, you know, letting bygones be bygones. No, man, by wisdom, by hating evil, pride and arrogance. OK, three things, very simple. You apply that, you fall into that category. God's going to keep you from this person here. Because these women love nothing more than to hunt for the precious soul. That's what they do. I've seen, look, I've worked with these people. I've had to sit down and talk with them. OK, because I've had to manage them before and I've heard their plans. I've had them tell me, like, look, I just because these women, they'll get into these workers with these guys and man, it just causes hell. Like I'm telling you from experience, it causes absolute hell. The guys don't want to work no more because they're afraid that another dude's going to get her. And it's like, you're married. What are you worried about this for? They're just, I know, but I just feel like I've got to protect her. I have to sit down with this girl and be like, what's going on here? Just like, I just got a problem or I just need attention. I just, I just, I just have to go from one guy to another. I've had women tell me that, like, I just have to take. And I love to take the married guy from his wife. I just love it. There's just something I just, I don't know what it is. It's a problem. I'm seeing a psychiatrist. I'm taking medications, but I just love taking a man from his family. It just brings me so much joy and I just don't think I can ever stop. I've had women tell me, I've had several of these types of women tell me that. And I've seen them do it. They will destroy your life if you let them. Okay. I do need to preach a sermon about that. But anyways, that's another one that's not going to go on YouTube. Verse 28, which yet my soul seeketh. Look at this here. Actually back up to verse 27. I'm sorry. I forgot. I skipped that. So he says, behold this. Okay. And what is this? Well, what you just read in verse 26. Behold, this have I found, sayeth the preacher. Counting one by one to find out the account. That's the job of a preacher to count one by one, to gather what we know to find out the unknown. Okay. That's how we do business. Okay. Verse 28, which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not. One man among a thousand have I found, but a woman among all those have I not found. So out of all of his wives, right? From the first wife that he took, which was from Egypt to the last concubine. Okay. The Bible seems to indicate that they were all of the world. And he's saying out of all of those, I didn't find one that brought me any real joy. None of them went beyond their beauty. Verse 29 says, lo, this only have I found that God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions. Okay. So God has designed us to live a certain way. God has designed us to live in harmony with him, but man has other plans. Man has other ideas. He has another agenda and that's what chapter eight is going to deal with. So we'll stop it right there for this evening. Let's bow our heads, have a word of prayer. Thank you Lord for Solomon and what he did, for preserving what he did Lord that we could learn from it and not go down the same road. Just prayed bless the fellowship after the service and bring us again safely this week in Jesus name I pray. Amen.