Ecclesiastes 7:15-8:1

“Men Are Schemers”

• Text: Ecclesiastes 7:15–8:1
  Preacher: Bryan Schneider
  Main Theme: Humanity’s fallen tendency to scheme apart from God’s wisdom—and our only hope found in Christ, the true Wisdom of God.

  Main Points

  • Perplexity in Providence: Solomon wrestles with the seeming injustice of life—the righteous suffering and the wicked prospering. Yet believers rest in God’s sovereign goodness (Romans 8:28).

  • Prudence in Living: “Do not be overly righteous” warns against self-righteousness and pride; “do not be overly wicked” warns against presuming upon grace. True wisdom fears the Lord and walks humbly.

  • Power of Wisdom: God-fearing wisdom strengthens more than ten rulers of a city—it preserves life and leads to discernment.

  • Pervasiveness of Sin: “There is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin.” All humanity is fallen (Romans 3:10–12).

  • People-Pleasing and Pride: We waste our lives fearing man’s opinion rather than God’s. Freedom comes when we live for the Lord’s approval.

  • Peril of Temptation: Solomon’s experience with women symbolizes sin’s snares—sweet at first, but binding and deadly.

  • Perfection Poisoned: God made man upright, but humanity sought out “many schemes.” Sin is not merely Satan’s trap—it’s our own invention.

  • Promise in Christ: The only escape from scheming hearts is Jesus Christ, the true Wisdom of God, who redeems sinners and makes their faces shine (Ecclesiastes 8:1; 2 Corinthians 3:18).

1. Biblical Themes

• Wisdom vs. Folly — True wisdom begins in fearing God (Proverbs 9:10; Ecclesiastes 7:18–19).

• Human Depravity — No one is righteous; sin infects every heart (Ecclesiastes 7:20, 29; Romans 3:23).

• Providence and Mystery — Life’s perplexities test our trust in God’s fatherly care (Job 1–2; Romans 8:28).

• Christ as Wisdom — Jesus is the embodiment of divine wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:24, 30).

• Freedom from Scheming — The gospel calls us to stop self-reliance and rest in Christ’s righteousness (Philippians 3:9).

2. Historical and Theological Context

• Solomon’s Perspective: Written by Solomon in old age, Ecclesiastes reflects repentance and reflection after a life of wisdom, wealth, and failure (1 Kings 11).

• Vanity Under the Sun: Ecclesiastes repeatedly shows the futility of life lived apart from God.

• Reformed Understanding: Human beings, created upright in Adam, fell into sin and corruption; redemption comes only through the second Adam, Jesus Christ.

3. Westminster Confession & Catechisms

• WCF 6.1–2 (Of the Fall): Man was created upright, but by sin fell from his original righteousness.

• WLC Q.25–27: Adam’s sin brought guilt and corruption to all mankind.

• WSC Q.82: “Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God? No mere man, since the fall, is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God.”

• WSC Q.33: “Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein He pardoneth all our sins and accepteth us as righteous in His sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.”

4. Practical Applications

• Trust God When Life Seems Unfair. His providence is perfect even when hidden.

• Reject Self-Righteousness. Rest in Christ’s imputed righteousness, not your moral record.

• Pursue Wisdom with Fear of the Lord. Wisdom protects from traps and teaches prudence.

• Guard Your Heart Against Sin’s Snares. Be alert to temptation, especially subtle ones.

• Stop Scheming—Start Trusting. Submit your plans and anxieties to Christ, the true source of joy and security.

with me in your Bible to Ecclesiastes chapter 7. Ecclesiastes chapter 7. We'll be looking at verses 15 through chapter 8 verse 1. So just right into chapter 8 this morning. If you're using the New King James pew Bibles provided for you on the pews, you'll find that on page 592. Ecclesiastes chapter 7 beginning at verse 15, hear now God's perfect word. I have seen everything in my days of vanity. There is a just man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs life in his wickedness. Do not be overly righteous, nor be overly wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Do not be overly wicked, nor be foolish. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you grasp this, and also not remove your hand from the other. For he who fears God will escape them all. Wisdom strengthens the wise, more than 10 rulers of the city. For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin. Also do not take heart, take to heart everything people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. For many times also your own heart has known that even you have cursed others. All this I have proved by wisdom. I said I will be wise. But it was far from me. As for that which is far off and exceedingly deep, who can find it out? I applied my heart to know, to search and seek out wisdom and the reason of things, to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness. And I find more bitter than death a woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be trapped by her. Here is what I have found, says the preacher, adding one thing to the other to find out the reason, which my soul still seeks, but I cannot find. One man among a thousand I have found, but a woman among all these I have not found. Truly this only I have found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. Who is like a wise man? And who knows the interpretation of a thing? A man's wisdom makes his face shine, and the sturdiness of his face is changed. Let's end this portion of the reading of God's perfect word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. It's perfect and it's true. We confess to you that there are things in your word that are more plainly true than others that we have to mine the depths to understand. And so, Father, we pray that your spirit would please let us rightly divide your word. that as I preach it, Lord, we pray that the true sense of it would come. Father, please, for each one of these, your sheep, we pray that you would, I pray that they would be good Bereans, looking at the scriptures and finding out whether these things are so. Father, we may not like everything it says, but Lord, we pray that where your word stands, we would submit. We need your spirit to do that in our hearts, so we pray, giving you our hearts and asking for your help in Jesus' name, amen. All right, we come to Ecclesiastes chapter 7, and we enter into a portion of, notice how verse 15 starts. I, I have seen. And then if you keep going on, you would see in verse 23, all this I have proved by wisdom. And then in verse 27, here is what I have found. This is a passage of Old Man Solomon's I, I, I. I've searched these things out, I've lived this life, I've done these things, and here's what I have found out. And a lot of this is, one of the reasons why I think this passage is, this whole book is written by Solomon, is because it fits his life so perfectly. And so we start off, and I've given you a whole bunch of Ps there as your different points, and I don't have a lot of time to get through or to dwell on any one of them for a long time. But we need to keep King Solomon's life and his history in the back of our minds as we read through this. Remember, Solomon ascended to the throne of David. And he was able to ask of God anything he wanted. And he didn't ask for victory over his enemies. He didn't ask for a whole bunch of wealth. Instead, he asked God for wisdom. And God said, OK, I'll give you wisdom. But then we find Solomon almost wanting to seek wisdom in ways that weren't according to God's Word. He threw himself headlong into politics and power and amassing all sorts of wealth and chariots, all sorts of things that God himself had said to the kings in the book of Deuteronomy that they shouldn't do. He multiplied, had almost a thousand ladies 300 concubine, or 300 wives and 700 concubine. A lot of them are political alliances all throughout. And this is old man Solomon as he has strayed away from the Lord, looking back on his life and shaking his head, saying, I've found out stuff I wish I had not gone down that hard road to find out. And that's our blessing. This is the old gray-haired man who's lived life a way that he wished he hadn't. telling us, here's what I've learned, please learn from me. So, in verses 15 through 18, he speaks of a perplexity and of a prudence in life. And perplexity means like, there's stuff that we just kind of scratch our head at. Verse 15, I've seen everything in my days of vanity, and there is a just man who perishes in his righteousness, And there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness. He scratches his head at this. And by the way, this is not just something Jeff Solomon scratched his head at and was perplexed by. This is also something that Jeremiah asked. Lord, why do the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper? Jeremiah 12.1 says, Righteous are you, O Lord, when I plead with you, yet let me talk with you about your judgments. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal so treacherously? Why is it, right? We think in this life, and there's this paradigm that we have that maybe if we live holy, righteous lives, things are gonna go really well for us. There's a whole school of theology, a health, wealth, and prosperity gospel that will tell you that. If you become a Christian, your life is gonna be easy, you're gonna have wealth, you're gonna have health, positive mental thinking, and that's what Christianity's gonna provide for you. Man, you've never read through the Bible. And I love you guys too much to just give you that type of hogwash lie. It's not true. All throughout the Bible we wonder, why was Enoch taken? He walked with God. Why did God take him? Elijah was a wonderful prophet doing amazing works, and God suddenly comes down and takes him up in a fiery chariot. Why isn't he allowed to stay? Why is Caiaphas, the high priest, who's corrupt and wicked and condemns Jesus to death, able to die late into his 60s? We have this ossuary box where they've kept his bones. He dies in wealth, natural causes, and yet Jesus, the perfect God-man, is tortured and crucified. Why does God allow these things to happen? Solomon's perplexed. But it's true. Holiness does not equal having the perfect life that you might imagine the world says a perfect life should look like. I do not think Job thought to himself, as his children were killed, as his wealth is stripped away from him, I don't think when he said, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord, I don't think that Job sat there and thought, yippee, I'm so glad all this is happening to me. He had these same questions. The whole book of Job is him wrestling with this question. And the answer that Solomon doesn't give us And I think Job does provide for us, and as we look at the stories of God's providence in the scriptures, we don't need to know why. That's part of God's perfect plan for us. Our blessing is to trust that we have a Heavenly Father who cares for us. So come hell or high water, we don't need to be crushed by the circumstances and the things that happen in this life. And if a just man perishes in his righteousness? How does Paul speak of that? For me to live is Christ, but to die is gain. It's not a zero-sum gain. If you die young and you are righteous, it may seem like a tragedy to the rest of us in this life. And yet, you get to be with Christ. What better is there than that? But humanly speaking, this is a question that people have wrestled with their whole lives. And the Christian submits, knowing that all things work together for the good of those who love God and who have been called according to his purposes. So we trust God's loving, fatherly hand. But then notice also, this perplexity leads to this idea of prudence in verse 16 and 17. Do not be overly righteous, nor be overly wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Do not be overly wicked, nor be foolish. Why should you die before your time?" Now, this is not like yin and yang, right? You got this black part of you and this white part of you, and you don't want to be perfectly righteous or perfectly wicked. You gotta be, kind of, have your chi, right? That's not what this is talking about. This is not saying, oh, you know, you could just dwell in your unrighteousness, and you can be wicked, just don't be too wicked. That's not what this is talking about. What Solomon is getting at in verse 16 is, there is a pride that hides in self-righteousness. Do not be overly righteous. This is the Pharisee, who's all out, you know, got a garden, and he has all these mint plants, and he goes out, and he He counts every single mint leaf he has and makes sure that he gives every one-tenth to the Lord for his tithe. And he's all self-assured in all of his righteousness and thinks, oh, I'm good. I'm perfectly righteous. I'm good with the Lord. I keep his law. And that's the type of person that Jesus says, you're overly righteous. Right? You're righteous in your own eyes. You're fooling yourself. You ignore the weighty matters of the law. Do not be overly righteous, nor overly wise. Why should you destroy yourself?" This is also, I think, talking about something that I see happen in a lot of Christians' hearts, and something that one of my friends, Dave, I mean, he talked to me, oh, this was probably 17 years ago now, and he said, you know, Brian, Sometimes I get the sense that you say that you are, you trust in the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to you as that's enough, and yet you seem to want to prove your own righteousness by being overly scrupulous. Like every single, every single little thing you have to put into a righteous, unrighteous category. And you're constantly trying to strain out gnats. And I think you're kind of kicking yourself in the teeth a little bit too much about things that you should show yourself some grace for. I'm going to say I still struggle with that 17 years later. And this constant overthinking, stress and spiritual anxiety, paralysis by trying to analyze, is every single little thing right? Mental drain that comes from it is what Solomon's getting at here. Indeed, it's not a faith. It's fear. It's fear and pride motivating. But then what about verse 17? Do not be overly wicked, nor be foolish. Why should you die before time? Again, this is not saying that, you know, well, you could just have a little bit of wickedness, right? The overall tenor of all of Scripture, even in Solomon's wisdom, is right. Sin is going to kill you. It's going to destroy you. And all we have to do is look into a few more verses and we're going to find what he says about sin. But this is just coming to the hard reality of life. There is sin. There will always be sin in your life. It will be a constant struggle. None of us will ever be perfect. We will constantly wrestle with sin. And for the Christian, that ought not to paralyze us. It doesn't mean we jump headlong into the sewers of sin, and we just say, well, I'm gonna sin, I'm not perfect, so I might as well just sin anyways, right? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what this is talking about. Put on the brakes. This isn't just an excuse to sin, to throw everything to the wind, and to go headlong in the sewage of lawlessness. That's not what this is saying. But it's saying you're not going to be able to avoid every single thing that your heart may try to tempt you into. There's always going to be traps and snares that your own heart sets, but sin really will destroy you. Did you notice that at the second half of 17? Why should you die before your time? life without limits, life with living headlong for folly and for transgression and sin, shortens your lifespan. It really does. Maybe you've tried to get life insurance or health insurance before. And you have to fill out all this paperwork. I actually found out a couple weeks ago. My kids and I were watching this video, and they started talking about morbidity charts. And that got me curious. I thought, wow, huh. I wonder how long they say I have left to live. And you start checking boxes. How old are you? How tall are you? How fat are you? What do you eat like? What do you sleep like? You start putting in all these factors. Do you drink? Do you do these different things? Do you smoke? And you start doing all this thing, and you realize, well, I realize I'm more than half baked. I'm done, right according to their stats. But I was like, OK, we'll see. My days are in the Lord's hand. But it was amazing. Every time you click one of those boxes, the chart goes down. Because there's natural consequences. And somebody might say, wow, hold on, right? I watched this video where there's this, like, 94-year-old guy runs a marathon smoking a cigarette. Yeah. How many of those guys are around? There's a reason why everybody's like, whoa, there's that one guy! Yeah, because all the rest of them died 20, 30 years before him. So it's saying, you're gonna struggle with sin in your life, so don't sin, but don't be surprised by sin. Don't jump headlong into it and you die before your time. And this is where he gets into this grasping or this prudence. It is good that you grasp this, and also not remove your hand from the other, for he who fears God will escape them all. This is the hard thing about wisdom. Wisdom is that knowledge applied in the right time and in the right scenario and in the right way. It's really hard to do. There are times that you ought to show yourself grace and realize, man, I messed that up, and keep moving. And there are other times where your sin ought to bring you down to your knees like lead weights in your kneecaps, and you ought to be ripped apart And it's not a small thing anymore that you find wickedness in your life. There are times in which we find ourselves that we need to show grace and forgiveness to others, and other times in our lives that we need to say, no, justice needs to be served here. And that's the idea of prudence. That's what Solomon is getting at here. It's good that you grasp this, and also remove your hand from the other. You can't take your hands off of both of these, or either of these. Why? For he who fears God will escape them all. If you really fear the Lord, if you have true reverence for God, you're not going to be reliant on your own righteousness. But also, if you truly fear God, you're not going to be surprised when you sin. Now, you might not like it, but you're not going to be surprised by it. And just like last time, I'm going to bring some things up on the stove, I'm just going to go on the front burner, and then when it's done and I'm done talking about it, I'm just going to move on, because that's what Solomon does. And he moves on. Verse 19. Next topic. Verse 19. He praises wisdom. Wisdom strengthens the wise, more than ten rulers of the city. Wisdom has practical benefits. It protects us. It cares for us. As we talked about previously, wisdom starts with the fear of the Lord. I love how verse 18 just goes right into verse 19. For he who fears God will escape them all. Wisdom strengthens the wise, more than ten rulers of the city. If you fear the Lord, if you have a reverence for God, There are practical benefits. The Hebrew has this idea that it makes you stronger than 10 men who protect the city. Why? I was wrestling with that. I was like, well, why would it make you, right? Well, one, you're kind of able to outsmart them, maybe out-equip them. But I think part of it is, if you have to hire 10 bodyguards to go into a scenario, wisdom might tell you, maybe I shouldn't go there. If you have to hire a whole bunch of thugs to walk around with you, maybe you're making the wrong choices in life. But it may be also that you're able to see the snares that they're planting for you and the traps they have hidden for you. So wisdom does protect us. Wisdom helps us see those. And then in verse 20, Solomon continues to look on his life and he continues to think about the people he's interacted with. He makes a statement that just smacks us in the face. People are perverse. Look with me at verse 20. For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin. This is coming from one of the most wise people who's ever lived the face of the earth. And he says, I've had queens and kings come and visit me. Wise people seek out wisdom. He's become an expert in astronomy and in biology and in botany. He's become, he knows all sorts of animals. He accumulates all this wisdom. He studies people. He wants to know what they're like. And at the end of all of Solomon's interactions with all sorts of people, he says, no one's righteous. There is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin. And we might think, well, hold on, he must be speaking with hyperbole here, right? He must be saying, okay, we're bad, but he's not saying we're that bad. But this, I'm convinced, this is one of the things that Paul is pointing at in Romans chapter 3 in the universal condemnation of all people. There is none righteous, no, not one. None of us seek the Lord. None of us naturally do good. No, it's that we have to come to grips with the reality of who we are. We're not righteous people in and of ourselves. By the way, you could just change out the word just there. The word just is tzaddik, right? None of us are righteous. None of us are just. None of us do perfectly to God as we ought to, nor to others as we ought to. We fall daily in the things we say and in the things we think and in the things we do. We don't even do the good stuff we ought to do. Solomon says there's none of them, none of us, that are just. Not a single one is perfect. And he goes on. He goes on from there and talks about people-pleasing. and verses 21 and 22. None of us are perfect, and so you know what you ought not to do, 21 and 22? Don't listen too much to what other people say. Also, do not take to heart everything people say, lest you hear your servant crushing you, or cursing you. For many times also, your own heart has known that even you have cursed others. Man, we spend and waste a lot of our lives eavesdropping in on what other people think about us, caring more about what people say about us. We live in such a people-pleasing society that, I mean, we even see this, and I think part of this is our democratic makeup of our government, and that's fine, is what does the news wanna show you all the time? What's the president's approval rating at any certain moment? How many people like him? I gotta tell you, if you're gonna lead anything, you better be ready for some people not to like you. And that's not a defense of our president, right? Please hear me, there are things that I don't like about him. Things that I wish he didn't do. There's things that I do. But point is, any single person, if you are too worried about hearing what other people are saying about you, you'll never evangelize anyone. You will never tell anybody about Jesus Christ. Because I can promise you, even some Iowa nice people, if you tell them about Jesus, they may smile at your face and be very nice to you and hear you out, but if you listen too closely, you might find out later that they're talking to their friend, and they're saying they can't stand when you come around. Maybe you don't want to listen too closely. Maybe ignorance is bliss. Maybe we shouldn't care so much. Do we fear God and walk in wisdom? And I like what he says in verse 22. For many times also your own heart has known that you have cursed others. By the way, that word curse there's typically thought of like thinking low of someone, taking them lightly or insignificantly, treating them with some contempt. How many times are we guilty of this ourselves? I'm gonna be honest. I don't want to know what a bunch of you think about me on Sunday afternoon. I don't want to ask you what you thought about the sermon because I might want to go home crying. Because if you think lowly, it might affect. But guess what? Whose approval are you living for? Who are you seeking to bring glory to? This is one of the amazing things that happens here is we don't need to live our lives shackled to trying to make everybody else happy. Making them think highly of us. That's not our job. But nor does it make, nor does it mean that you're able to be a principled prick who never, who will never budge because you're perfect in all your ways. Right? That's called pride. Sometimes you do need to listen to criticism. That's very helpful. But it doesn't mean you're a slave to other people's opinions. Solomon says, just give up the popularity contest. And then he picks up in 23 through 26, another biographical portion here. This is in Solomon's attempt to gain wisdom. Notice, again, the I. Verse 23, all this I have proved by wisdom. I said I will be wise, but it was far from me. As for that which is far off and was exceedingly deep, who can find it out? I applied my heart to know, to search and seek out wisdom and the reason of things, to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness, and I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be trapped by her." This Again, as old man Solomon saying, I've walked down this road, and I'm telling you, worldly wisdom does not equal success in life. 20 verse 25 is not abstract. When he says, I will be wise, and then he's gonna search it out. He wants to go after the exceedingly deep things. He said in verse 25, again, this is his real life story. I applied my heart to know, to seek out wisdom and the reason of things, to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness. Solomon threw himself headlong into all sorts of sin and folly. giving himself over to all sorts of good things of this life. He threw himself into the sewer of sin. He comes out and he says, there's no rationality for it. I applied my heart to know, to search and seek out wisdom and the reason of things, to know the wickedness of folly, even foolishness and madness. And it's just stuck there, lingering in the air. Because there's no answer for it. There's nothing there for it. I remember I was talking to someone about, there was, this person and I were talking about a third party that they were connected with, and this third party was, she was really struggling, and I mean, just like, going headlong towards certain sins, and this concerned sister was saying, I just don't get it. Why are they doing this to themselves? I remember just telling them, like, at the end of the day, You can't explain irrationality. She's making choices. It's what she wants to do. Everybody in her life is able to see where this is running towards hurt, disaster. It's madness. And yet it's still going that way. And I think Solomon's even thinking of his own life. The wickedness and the folly and the foolishness and the madness that he had embraced. And then in verse 26, again, all of this is within this I language. He finds himself caught in the snares and the nets of women. Solomon with his 300 wives and his 700 concubines. I want you to hear this as just He also wrote Proverbs 1 through 9 where he talks a lot about the immoral women. But I think sometimes we abstract that and we don't want to talk about it away from Solomon's life. Solomon knew what it was like to hear the whispers of Satan coming off of the seductress women he was sleeping with. Solomon knew what it was like to have his heart pulled away and try to understand, well, why would they sacrifice to this idol? Why would they pray to these gods? Maybe I'll go to the temple and I'll do it too. And he was being drawn there with a soft hand of one of his women. He found himself ensnared. What does he do? How does he get out of this? There's a noose around his neck, and he can't get out. He says, just don't go there. Just don't go there. I got to say, right, and Solomon's saying this because he's a dude writing, and this is his experience. But we could say this, flop the opposite direction, too. How? Many times there have also been women who fall in love with guys who do not know Christ and yet marry them and then find their lives a constant battle struggling to maintain the faith. This is why the scriptures talk about, let us not be unequally yoked, right? Because there's this constant tension in a marriage between two spouses, one who's believing and one who's unbelieving. Well, if you really loved me, why would you stay for Sunday school? Oh, come on, don't you want to be with the kids? There's baseball today. Why are you going to go to church? Can't you ever just relax? Why do you have to go to church every single week? Oh, stop reading your Bible. That's just a waste of time. Those things eventually start coming out. They eventually do happen. We need to listen to old man Solomon here. Both an immoral woman, whose hearts, and let's not take it lightly here, right? You could have the GQ dude who's trying to play all playboy and wrap up ladies, but this old man Solomon speaking from his wisdom as a guy. And men, this is a way that for, since time was invented, this has been a problem. Stay away from the women who would want to draw you in with flattering eyes, laughing at your jokes, giving you attention, wanting to draw you in, pulling in your heart. Stay far from the traps. I've talked about this before. I'm not going to linger here. But sadly, we're living more and more in an age where Young men, especially you, you don't even have to leave your house. You can have relationships with computer girlfriends. Just get on X, have an online girlfriend. You don't even have to have a real relationship. You can just put on the screen and have whatever wild experience you want to see with your eyes. And all the while, I've talked to so many men who the addiction of what they see on the screen grabs their hearts. And when they finally come to grips that they want to put this dragon to death in their lives, I'm telling you, it was one of the hardest fights I've seen guys go through. Literally, we talk about fighter versus. killing, stopping the sin, and running away from it because your life is at stake. And if you don't take it that seriously, you're just gonna fall right back in. Be aware of the traps that are set for you. But notice whose fault it is. Again, Solomon brings up how perfection is poisoned in verses 27 through 29. Here is what I have found, says the preacher, adding one thing to the other to find out the reason, which my soul still seeks, but I cannot find. One man among a thousand I have found, but a woman among all these I have not found. Truly, this only I have found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. I need to talk about the elephant in the room, the second half of verse 28, because we might want to see that and think, oh man, here's chauvinistic Solomon. I don't think so. And I want to point out, this is somebody who wrote, right, we're living in an age where people are like, if you say anything in defense of ladies, well, you're just effeminate, or you've delved headlong into feminism. No, I'm going to read something from the 1660s. Matthew Poole commenting on this, a Puritan in England commenting on this. It is not Solomon's design to disparage this sex, nor to make a general comparison between men and women in all places in all ages, but only to suggest his own experience of it. The second half of verse 28 is not Solomon saying that, you know, there's no righteous women in the world. That's not what he's saying here. What he's saying is very clear in verse 29. There's no one. He's stacked up all the numbers. He's done all the arithmetic. He's gone through all the research. And he has yet to find a single person righteous. Because this is what he has found out. God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. God made man upright. Solomon is talking about Genesis 1 and 2. God made Adam and Eve in the garden and He declared that they were good. They were made in His image. They were supposed to fill the earth and multiply. They were supposed to be His vice-regents on the earth. They were supposed to be the ones who cultivated the garden and filled the earth and made all things full with all their goodness. And yet the craftiest one of all, the serpent, came and he tempted them. And in Genesis chapter 3, they went from being the victims of the crafty schemer to being schemers themselves. See, what Solomon is saying is, it's not good enough that we get to say, well, Satan made me do it. No, we're schemers. We find ourselves plotting, planning, and then doing the things of sin that we know we ought not to do. We've lost our original uprightness. This is a struggle. What do we do? What do we do? We're not those who worship God only. We like to worship our bellies. We're not those who perfectly keep God's name. We blaspheme it. Not those who like to rest on the Lord's Day. We like our entertainment. We like our work. We want to just get a day ahead. We can't even stop thinking about work on the Lord's Day. There's chores to do. There's stuff to do. We don't honor the authorities above us. Some of us think, well, I don't have a mom and dad, so I don't have to obey the fifth commandment anymore. And yet, when it comes to presidents and principalities, we don't honor them. Steel. Don't even be honest sometimes in our taxes. Think lowly of others. Lust. Covet what other people have. Tell half-truths and white lies. God made man upright. But they have sought out many schemes. What hope do we have? What hope do we have if verse 20 and verse 29 are true? Where do we go if there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin? Where do we go if man was made upright, but we have sought out many schemes? Our only hope is to fear the Lord and trust the true wisdom that He has given us in His Son, Jesus Christ. And I think that's where chapter 8 verse 1 leads us. Who is like a wise man and who knows the interpretation of a thing? A man's wisdom makes his face shine and the sternness of his face is changed. The most wise thing that we can do that will turn our heart from the gray and the dull of the previous chapter and to make our faces shine is to embrace Jesus Christ, the wisdom of God in the flesh. It is Jesus Christ that gives us freedom from all of our schemes. It is Jesus Christ that frees us from the question of why do the wicked prosper and the just die young. It is Jesus Christ who helps us and cares for us in our times of need. It is Jesus Christ. It is in Christ that we do not need to fear our own self-evaluation. It is in Christ Jesus I don't have to pretend to be perfect. It is in Christ that we do not have to be a slave to sin. It is in Christ that we do not have to fear death. It is in Christ that we do not have to walk around like fools. It is in Christ that we are enabled to see the snares that Satan has set for us and to flee. It is in Christ that we can avoid shame and slavery of people-pleasing. It is in Christ that we are freed from thinking that it is our righteousness that we must cling to. It is in Christ that we can stop scheming and start trusting. It is in Christ that our hearts are made glad. It is in Jesus that we come to face with the only one who is perfectly righteous. And we say what we've talked about in the catechism together this morning, It is not a righteousness of my own, but it is by faith in the righteousness of Christ imputed to me. That is what makes my heart rejoice. That is what turns the day of death into a day of rejoicing. And so we rejoice in the wisdom of God shown to us in Christ Jesus. So I hope that you walk away from here and you see old man Solomon saying, look, I've gone down these paths and I've learned these things, avoid Avoid it. Come face to face with who you are. And rest in applying Christ to your life with skill. Find your life hidden in Christ. And have your stern countenance changed. For a man's wisdom makes his face shine. And that happens in Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, this sermon is a shotgun sermon with birdshot going everywhere. Father, I pray for your Holy Spirit that you might aim at each of our hearts where we need to be convicted of our own corruption or encouraged where we may have been doubting and struggling. Lord, we pray that you would make us wise in Christ. We pray that you would help us. Lord, please do not lead us into paths that lead to destruction. Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. in our lives. Help us, God, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

• How does Solomon’s honesty about life’s injustices help you trust God’s sovereignty?

• What does it mean to be “overly righteous” or “overly wicked”?

• How does fearing God balance grace and obedience?

• In what ways are you tempted to “scheme” rather than trust Christ?

• How does Christ, as true Wisdom, free you from self-righteousness and sin?

• How might this passage correct modern ideas of prosperity and fairness?

• Vanity: Hebrew hevel—breath, vapor, futility apart from God.

• Fear of the Lord: Reverent awe that produces obedience and wisdom.

• Righteousness: Moral perfection imputed by Christ, not achieved by man.

• Schemes: Human plots and manipulations flowing from sin’s corruption.

• Wisdom: Rightly applying God’s truth in the complexities of life.