Pride and Position

Scripture Reading

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 10. This morning, we will be looking at verses 4 through 7. To provide some context, I will also read verses 1 through 7. Ecclesiastes chapter 10 can be found on page 594 if you are using your pew Bibles.

A dead fly in the ointment of the apothecary causes the ointment to give off a foul odor. So does a little folly to one respected for wisdom and honor. A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left. Even when a fool walks along the way, he lacks wisdom, and he shows everyone that he is a fool. If the spirit of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your post, for calmness pacifies great offenses. There is an evil I have seen under the sun, like an error proceeding from the ruler. Folly is set in great dignity, while the rich sit in a lowly place. I have seen servants on horses, while princes walk on the ground like servants. That concludes this portion of the reading of God's word. Let us pray together. God, we have read Your word, and it is perfect and true.

But Lord, we confess to You that it is easy for us to tune You out. It is easier for us to get distracted. We need Your help to incline our hearts to actually listen to Your word. God, I confess to You that even this morning I feel weak and find it difficult to think straight.

Lord, we need Your Holy Spirit to please help us. Help us to understand Your word by the power of Your Spirit, to have it buried in our hearts like a seed that might sprout up and bear good fruit. Father, please help us. May You be glorified in the building up of Your people. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

We like to think in America that we are absolutely free. And yet we live under a lot more authority than we sometimes want to admit. We do have a federal government under whose authority we must live. We have a state government under whose authority we must live. We have different laws in our land under whose authority we must live. We have bosses under whose authority we must live. Children, you have parents under whose authority you must live. There are teachers to whom we must listen. There are supervisors to whom we must listen. For elders, there is a presbytery and a synod to whom we must listen.

There are many authorities in life. There are bankers who sometimes decide what we are allowed to do. There are many authorities that we do not always think about. Sometimes authority is wise, and sometimes authorities are not very wise. Sometimes authorities even become angry, sometimes justly and sometimes unjustly.

Solomon does not have time to romanticize about perfect human authority. He stands as one in authority and has met countless kings, queens, and different rulers as they made their different pilgrimages to learn about his wisdom. When the queen of Sheba came and there were all sorts of dignitaries, the king of Tyre came to meet him. Solomon has met all sorts of dignitaries from all over the world and does not have time to pretend that leadership and authority are always going to be perfect. Power is unstable. And in a world that God has created, and yet sin has twisted, sometimes we need wisdom. How do we live under authority that is not necessarily what we want to be under? And how do we do so wisely and faithfully?

Well, that is what he addresses in verses 4 through 7. Look with me at verse 4. In verse four, we see that he provides a wisdom principle for how we live under authority when it is angry. If the spirit of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your post, for conciliation pacifies great offenses. Then, in the second part, there is a case study in verses five through seven. So if the ruler is angry with you, if his spirit has risen against you, what do you do? Well, you stay on your job, you stay in your post, but verses five through seven show us what that looks like sometimes.

Why is this command needed in the real world? There is an evil I have seen under the sun, an error proceeding from the ruler. Folly is set in great dignity while the rich sit in a lowly place. I have seen servants on horses while princes walk on the ground like servants. What is this getting at?

Verse four tells us, as one commentator, his name is Kidner, says, you need to give up the huff. Do you know what that means? Have you ever seen someone, when they are in a situation they do not want to be in, and they get offended because somebody else is angry with them, and how do they respond to it?

They say, "Well then I quit." Matthew Henry, commenting on this, says, do not act childish. If somebody gets under your skin a little bit because they are angry with you and you just huff and you puff and you sulk and you cry and you pout, well fine, I just will not even be here anymore and you walk away. Solomon says, do not do that. Do not behave like that.

When it says in verse four, "if the spirit of the ruler rises against you," this means that he is angry with you. There is anger that has arisen. The anger might be flaring up because you might have done something wrong. It might be your mismanagement, or it could be that somebody has maligned your name. Solomon does not tell us why this happens, but it does happen.

Their superiors' tones change, accusations start, and there might even be threats implied with their anger. If a king gets mad at you, it might mean losing your head. Remember Joseph? There were two men who met him in prison. Both of them had dreams. One of them was going to be restored, and one of them was going to lose his head. When a ruler is angry at you, especially in the ancient Near East, this is a big reason that you might want to take stock.

Do I need to leave town? Solomon says, no, do not leave your place. Do not storm off. Do not be theatrical. Do not be peevish. Do not rage quit. Do not throw your bag or your computer screen across the room or do something similar. It is not going to help with anything. What does he say instead? "For conciliation pacifies great offenses."

One man wrote on this and said that essentially you need to learn how to be like a snake charmer. At first, I thought, I do not really like that illustration of a snake charmer. But then as I thought about it, I thought, you know, if you are caught in a situation where you are dealing with a viper or a cobra and you are sitting there thinking, "I might get bit and die," do you run away? No, if you run away, what can still happen? You might still get bit and die. Or you calm down and you have wisdom. How do you pacify? How do you bring calmness? How do you bring gentleness back into the situation? How do you prevent this from becoming a disaster?

I need to be clear with you: there are things that this is telling us we should do and there are other things that I am not telling you it means. What this is, is that we need to have a default posture where we control our speech, we control our body language, we control our timing, we do not add fuel to the fire. We do not let our pride seep in and get all offended and make things get worse. That is what we are supposed to do.

But this is not telling you that if you find an authority and they are mad at you and they are abusive of their power, it is telling you to just be a doormat. There is a time to walk away. That is not what he is talking about here. This is not saying that if you are submitting to the authority is just encouraging them to sin more, you just say, "Oh, you are doing great, King. Just do whatever you want." That is not what this is saying either. It is not saying you stay and you participate in evil. It is not saying that truth does not matter. But this is talking about just the real-life situation where there is an authority over you and they get mad, what do you do?

We see this happen. We actually have some good positive examples of this. One of the examples that I think about in the Old Testament that amazes me, and sometimes I do literally scratch my head at this, is David and Saul. King Saul has gone off his rocker.

The man is mad. And by mad, I mean he is crazy. He wants to kill David. David has to play his harp to try to get him to calm down at times. And even when he is doing that, what does King Saul do? He tries to throw a spear and tries to pin him to the wall. And then he starts chasing him down and hunting him like a dog.

And yet there is this point, this interaction between Saul and David, when David and his small group of men are hiding far back in the dark part of a cave. Saul needs to do what happens when you have drunk a little bit too much coffee in the morning; he needs to go to the bathroom. So he goes, finds a cave where nobody else is, and he is going to take care of his business. David creeps up on him and cuts off a part of the corner of his robe.

Then Saul leaves, and David is just heartstruck. Everyone, all the men in the cave, are like, "Just go kill him. Just go kill him." And how does David pacify Saul? Did he kill him? Or did he say, "You idiot, look, I could have killed you"? No, he says, "What have I done wrong? What have I sinned against you? What have I done to make you come and try to hunt me like a dead dog?"

But he is grieved because he still used that knife. And it was, that was God's anointed, right? That was the one that God had put in authority. Even though you are sitting there going, "Saul shouldn't be king anymore," that is who God had chosen to be king. And David understood that if he had walked out of that cave and yelled and screamed, it would not have gone well. He and his men would have died. But instead, he restrains himself. He speaks carefully. He refuses to repay evil with evil or anger with anger. He does not just huff and puff.

We see this in Daniel as well. We see Daniel's three companions, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. When the king is angry at them, do they flee? No. They calmly tell the king, "No, we are not going to bow down to the idol." Remember, these men are leaders in the community by this point. They are not nobodies. Daniel has already interpreted the dream of the king about the statue. They are promoted into these places of position, and they should die because Nebuchadnezzar is mad at them because they will not bow down to his golden statue.

And yet, when Nebuchadnezzar is extremely angry, mad at them, and going to throw them into the fire, they say, "That is fine. Throw us into the fire. We are not going to bow. God will save us. But even if he does not, he is still king." Now, Nebuchadnezzar still throws them into the fire. But what happens? God takes care of them. They are saved. They do not respond back with sarcasm, but with careful truth.

You even see this with Nehemiah. When Nehemiah stands before Artaxerxes in Nehemiah chapter 2, he is grief-stricken. Nehemiah's grief is because the Jewish people are in Babylon, the city is in ruins, the walls are torn down, the temple is like a shabby little thing, a shadow of what it once was, and he is the king's cup-bearer.

The cup-bearer is the person you would want to talk about a risky job. That is the type of person who is an adrenaline junkie. This is the type of person who says, "I am going to taste the king's wine before he does. I do not want him to die. I might die instead."

You have to have a certain amount of guts to take that type of job. But if your countenance has changed, if your face looks a little nervous, if you are a little bit off as the cup-bearer, that is a dangerous thing as well. Now, can the king trust you? Well, maybe not. He might get mad at you. He might ask, "What is wrong with you? Why are you looking sad? What is in my cup? What is going on?"

Nehemiah found himself in a dangerous spot. And yet, he does not just huff and puff at the king. He does not say, "Oh, I cannot believe you would see this." No, he is calm. He is measured. He has composure and posture. He prays to the Lord and he speaks carefully to the king. He says, "Yes, I am sad. The city that my people come from is in ruins." He pacifies the king's anger and actually good comes out of it. He gets to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls.

But this is also what we see when Christ is before Pilate. We see Jesus at a very peculiar point in his life. Life and death are right before him, and he is brought before a corrupt leader. By the way, Pilate would eventually be recalled back to Rome because of how cruel he was to the Jewish people. The story does not end well for Pilate with the Caesars.

He is put there, but he is no friend of the Jews. And so when Jesus stands before Pilate and is on trial, have you ever asked yourself, why is Jesus willing to be silent? One reason is that he knows he is doing his Father's command, but Jesus also is this model for us. He does not retaliate, even though he is being sinned against. He does not melt down, he does not huff and puff, he does not lose his composure, but he walks with a purpose even before a king who is angry at him.

And so what does this mean for your life in verse four? What are your patterns of reacting angrily? When do you tend to say, "Fine, I'll quit"? Is it when you are offended? Is it because you enjoy the drama that comes with it? Are you motivated by your actions when the authorities over you are angry? Is it because of a sense of rejection that you react angrily and walk away, quit your job, or leave your post? Or is your motivation to honor God? Here is some practical advice. The authority over you is angry. They are mad.

Lower your volume a few notches. Soften your tone. Ask clarifying questions. Be willing to take criticism seriously. Let the authorities over you know that you hear them. And be slow to give an answer in return. Take a moment. Gather some spiritual strength.

And stay in that place unless it means disobedience to God. There will be times when you have to leave your post. You must obey God rather than men. If the authority demands that you sin, demands that you lie, demands that you commit adultery or idolatry, then perhaps it is time to leave. But most of the time, leaving is not courage. Most of the time, it is our impulsivity and anger in response. And so if the spirit of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your post, for conciliation pacifies great offenses.

But then notice, secondly, this case study that happens in verses 5 through 7. There is an evil I have seen under the sun, an error proceeding from the ruler. Folly is set in great dignity, while the rich sit in a lowly place. I have seen servants on horses, while princes walk on the ground like servants. And most commentators think that verse 4 and verses 5 through 6 are directly connected, meaning that this is a ruler who is now making foolish appointments. And Solomon here is saying that there's this evil that he's seen under the sun. This is one of his favorite sayings throughout the book—it's about human experience. I've seen this stuff happen on the earth.

It comes from a ruler who's messing up with appointments and not overseeing things correctly. Folly—people who are foolish—are elevated to places they ought never to have been, and there are people that you would expect to be in positions of power and authority who have wisdom and experience, but instead they're treated like dirt. And other people who have no business doing anything other than sweeping the floor and handing people stuff end up making decisions they're unqualified to be making. Servants riding on horses and princes getting blisters on the bottom of their feet walking. The point is, authority often appoints badly. And when authorities in the world, under the sun, appoint badly, society, organizations, and people suffer. People pay the price. It's just the nature of an unstable world that we live in.

We want to believe—especially in America—that whether it's in your workplace or whether it's in the church or whether it's in government, we would live by a meritocracy. That the most qualified people, the best fit for the job, should get the higher positions of authority and power, of prestige and wealth. And yet have you ever turned on the news and listened to some of our politicians? We know that this happens. We know that there are people that receive honor and glory and positions of power and authority that they ought not to have.

And that's what Solomon's saying. He's saying that even as he's dealing with a bureaucracy of ancient Israel, he even sees in his own administration there are people he wishes that he could just get rid of, but they're there. And he sees it in other people's administrations too, and he's just saying, this is what happens. It's not a theory, but it's what happens when things get flipped on their head.

And sadly, Israel's going to be marked by this again and again and again, especially the Northern Kingdom. But we'll start with the South. In 1 Kings chapter 12, you have Solomon's son. Solomon's going to have a boy, his son's name is Rehoboam, and Rehoboam first becomes king.

And there are people—Solomon had all these great building enterprises. He built an amazing palace, he built the beautiful temple, he had all sorts of building projects all over the place, but guess what? It took a lot of work and a lot of manpower. A lot of people were taken away from their businesses and their farms to go and do the work of government building. And they come back and they come to Rehoboam, Solomon's son, and they say, "We need some breathing space. We need to be able to even take care of our own families." And what does Rehoboam do?

Does he listen to the wise or does he listen to the foolish? He listens to his peers. He listens to the men who have no experience. They might as well be servants, but they are friends with him, so they have some access. And he listens to people who are unqualified, and he tears apart the kingdom.

Ten of the tribes up north say, you know what, forget it. We have no share in this. We will go do our own thing. There is a civil rupture, instability, and lasting consequences. You find this with Ahab and Jezebel in 1 Kings 21. Naboth is murdered. Innocent people are crushed. Corruption by the highest places of authority.

This whole idea of Naboth is this man who would not sell his field to Ahab, and Ahab gets all huffy about it. He goes sulking home to his wife, and he will not sell me his field, and so what does she do? She just has the man killed. Well, now he can have his field. That is what Solomon is talking about here. When folly is set in great dignity, this is what happens. People are hurt. When the wrong people are empowered, the righteous become vulnerable. That is what "Folly Set in Great Dignity" is getting at.

I am not going to rehearse these ones, but you can think about maybe later at home, look at Esther chapter 3 and think about how in the world did Haman get his appointment before Artaxerxes? Anything about 1 Samuel 22? How in the world did Doeg the Edomite get access to Saul? Or anything about even why in the world would somebody like Pilate or Herod get authority? Solomon is looking at the world in verses 5 through 7 and he is saying that the world sometimes seems to have turned on its head. But we know it should not be this way; it is not. It is an upside-down world.

And we find just how dark that can get when we think of the King of Glory, who, though in the image of God himself, did not count equality with God something to be grasped. He laid aside his heavenly glory for a time and took on the form of man. He did not even have a place to lay his head. The King of Glory did not have palaces to live in.

There is one time that we read in all the Gospels when Jesus was treated with any type of dignity or royal respect. That one day when he entered into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, when he walked up and they sang out, "Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest," as he rode on a donkey into Jerusalem. That is the only time in Jesus's entire earthly life. And what happened? One day they are singing, "Hosanna in the highest." And just a few nights' sleep later, they are shouting, "Crucify him."

Jesus showed us that the path to humiliation has to come. And yet God uses that to again flip the world on its head again. Because see, when the King of Glory walked in the way of humility and even was willing to stay the course when the ruler was angry at him, he saved all of us. And in his disgrace, we get grace. In his humiliation, we get salvation. In his being put to the side and willing to be injured The world was made right, and there's finally hope again.

Ecclesiastes doesn't end in despair when we read it through the lens of the New Testament. It tells us the truth so we can stop putting our hope in the wrong places. We will never find our hope fulfilled in this life if you think that your hope will be fulfilled and someday the political organization finally getting everything right. I'm begging you, please do not hold your breath waiting for everything in Des Moines and DC to get right, that when they'll finally put the right people in all the right places and then you'll finally have a good life and then you can have hope.

You will die blue in the face by holding your breath for that. That's what Solomon's getting at. It just happens. Don't put your hope there. So some applications to walk away from this. What are your expectations? Verses 5 through 7. Stop being surprised when fools rise up. It happens.

Don't assume that you're going to get your reward from the world if you have the right morals and the right actions and the right wisdom. You may even do all the things right in this world and even become what everybody in the world might think is successful. You may even become rich. And yet people might still despise you. You may be somebody who is godly. You may even be an adopted son or daughter of the King Most High, and people still look down on you. You may be those who deserve to ride on horses.

Don't be surprised when you gotta put on your shoes and walk in this life. But secondly, do not interpret God's providence based on promotions. This is what my pastor Micah used to tell me. Stop trying to discern God's will from trivial signs. We are not pagans. We are not people who, like voodoo witchcraft doctors, cut up chickens and examine the entrails and bones to try to read the future or understand God's actions. That is what Micah used to tell me I would do when I would think, perhaps God is doing this because He is happy with me, and so I received this good grade or this raise at work, and thus I thank God. He would say, do you know what God is doing?

That is His secret counsel. If He is humbling you, there is a reason for it, and you know what your job is? To be faithful in the position He has placed you in. If He has given you good things in your life, that is well and good; be thankful for that. If there are difficult circumstances such as famine, drought, demotion, or punishment, examine your life. If there is actual sin, be wise about it. But stop thinking that if you are receiving a promotion, wealth, or prestige, God is necessarily happy with you. He may not be. Sometimes He allows foolish people to become kings and ride horses. This does not mean He is pleased with them. The text does not permit such a simplistic interpretation.

Thirdly, do not idolize systems. This text confronts us directly, stating that we live in a world where, no matter how much we try to use our political science knowledge to maneuver every possible situation, the system will not work perfectly. There will always be flaws in the plan. There will never be a perfect system of government under the sun. You cannot anchor your spiritual stability to what is happening in leadership, especially in the government. Do not place your faith in earthly princes.

I will say that even as we have had people join the church and they have been excited about Presbyterianism and other aspects, sometimes even working through membership vows, and they will say, "I am just so glad that there is a church that finally does this right," and I respond, "Wait, hold on, let us pause here. I promise you, we are going to make mistakes." Do not place your trust even in a blind adherence to the Presbyterian system, as if to say, "Oh, well, the system works, and so the system is biblical, and therefore it will always work perfectly." No, because sinful people are involved in it. Our anchor for the soul is in Jesus Christ alone, and we receive our peace from him, not from people running authority systems. If you do that, your peace will be crushed when leadership fails.

Bringing it together, what do we have for this application? We need to have a Christian posture. The world is unstable, so we need to have a posture of wisdom. Leadership is uncertain, so we need to know how to stand. You need to know how to be steady when you are mistreated. Stay calm, even when authority figures react strongly. This is a challenging task. You need to be wise in how you respond to an angry authority figure, even when you can see the incompetence of that authority. You need to learn what we need to learn. We need to learn what it means to show faithfulness even when there is criticism.

And how do we show faithfulness without becoming cynical? When authority becomes difficult, do not react impulsively, act like a child, quit your job, resign, and walk away. Slow down. Pause. Speak gently. Ask clarifying questions. Accept correction. Be humble. When the world seems upside down, do not panic. Do not obsess. Do not become bitter. Do not let it steal your joy.

When you are overlooked and you believe you deserve honor, praise, wealth, promotion, or something else, and someone unqualified receives it instead, do you let it ruin your life? Or do you find your life hidden in Christ and discover a stability that nothing outside of you can take away? Because you know what?

Sometimes this world, trying to find the right word, I hesitate to say it because some parents might not like it. Sometimes life is like eating a bag of garbage. Sometimes there are just bad situations in life. And where it truly matters for Christians is asking, when you face these challenges, do you start thinking that Jesus is no longer king?

Does it shake your faith to consider that perhaps God is not truly sovereign? Maybe because things are not going well in your life, you struggle to believe that God is in control. Because if God were in control of your life, things would be better for you. If God truly loved you, would He not know that you dislike this situation, that you have been hurt, and that you have been wronged?

Yes, this happened to Jesus. If it happened to Christ, why should we be surprised that it would happen to us as well? So when you are overlooked and face the difficult circumstances of life, do not let them pull you away from Christ. Instead, I pray that you might delve more deeply into the depths and riches of the knowledge of the love of God, which is shown to us in Christ Jesus.

And if you are one of those whom God puts in a place of authority, if you are put in a place where you have leadership, we ought to listen to this very, very closely. This is how we respond to people and how people in authority appoint others, and it can really mess up people's lives. Leaders ought to know and prayerfully consider, "Am I promoting somebody who is full of folly?" Leaders ought to fear this text and wrestle in their hearts with, "I do not want to just elevate people that everybody else is looking around and going, 'That person deserves to be washing dishes, not making decisions.'" Anyone whom God puts in authority, we ought to come to verses four through seven, and it should bring us to our knees pleading with God to give us wisdom.

The last application with which I will close is having our hope grounded in Christ. Under the sun, in our normal human experience, rulers are going to mess things up, and things are going to seem like they are upside down and backwards. But in the heavens, not under the sun, but where Jesus Christ is the blinding light, the King is reigning perfectly.

And we look forward to that kingdom. We look forward to that great day when all this foolishness goes away, when the last great day comes, and the King of glory returns, and there is no more foolish appointments. And there is no more false judgment, no more fear of the anger of just petty rulers. But we know that the King of glory reigns and that he judges with perfect equity and does all things perfectly. Christian, wait for and long for and know that someday that kingdom is coming. Do not place your trust in earthly princes, but look to the King of kings and wait for that great day. Because the King of glory is coming back someday. He is reigning now in heaven, but someday he will put all things in order and in place. And so rest in him. Hope in him.

And then we can be calm, even in the face of angry rulers. Then we can have an anchor for our souls. Even when we see those who do not deserve glory riding on the heights, while those who deserve honor are walking in the dust, we can still have confidence because our King is still reigning.

Let us pray. Father, we thank you for telling us the truth. God, we pray that your Holy Spirit would please now help us to not get off center when the pressures of these things actually happen in our lives. Please do not just let us be hearers of this Word, but help us to be doers. Teach us to be peacemakers, for they are blessed. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.