Olive Press

MESSAGE FOR APRIL 21, 2013 FROM ECCLESIASTES 7:23-29

All sincere believers yearn for a time when sleepy Christians wake up, nominal-in-name-only Christians are genuinely converted and very hard-hearted unbelievers are miraculously transformed by the gospel.
1 Traditionally, when these things happen with any great frequency these periods in the church are called "revivals" or "spiritual awakenings."
All genuine believers want to see the church experience an increased love for God marked by a sense of both an increased reverence for God and great joy in God at the same time. A couple of weeks ago, pastor and author Tim Keller was asked what is the biggest obstacle to experiencing this kind of revival in the North American church. One observer who was there writes, "Drawing on his experience in urban, culture-shaping Manhattan, Keller responded that one of the biggest obstacles to…revival in the church is the basic fact that almost all sinners outside the Church and a majority inside the church are sleeping with each other. In other words, good old-fashioned fornication." The author continues, "…Just as C.S. Lewis wrote in "Mere Christianity" all those years ago, there are few of Christianity’s teachings more offensive, unpalatable, and likely to drive people away from the Gospel than its sex ethic. Many college students and young adults don’t want to turn to God or, at least not the kind of …God you find in the gospel, because he has opinions on sex they find restrictive."2

1
This description of revival is a truncated paraphrase of Tim Keller’s definition in www.patheos.com/blogs/christianpopculture/2013/04/who-are-you-sleeping-with-my-conversation-with-timothy-keller

2 Quoted in the above article cited


The wisdom literature in the Bible—and that includes Ecclesiastes through which we are currently preaching—is not silent on the topic of sexual sin. In the text we’ll be looking at this morning, the author arrives at the topic of sexual sin in the midst of a discussion about his life-long search for wisdom. He continues this discussion about wisdom in verses 23-25. "
23 All this [what he has discussed in the previous section] I have tested by wisdom. I said, "I will be wise," but it was far from me. 24 That which has been is far off, 2

and deep, very deep; who can find it out?" After telling us in last week’s text that wisdom is powerful in spite of the fact that it can’t answer life’s toughest questions, the author tells us two things about his search for wisdom.

First,
the intensity with which he has searched for wisdom. He has turned his heart to know and to search out and seek wisdom and the scheme of things. Know, search out, seek—this is no casual pursuit. That phrase "the scheme of things" literally means—a detailed accounting of all issues. The author has sought to find a detailed accounting of life and reality. He has no interest in becoming merely familiar with the way this world works—he wants a mastery of understanding. To that end, he’s dedicated himself to exploring and discovering this reality. He is on a search—the word translated "find" or "found" is translated at least six times. This is the quest of Qohelet’s life.

Another mark of his search for life’s meaning through wisdom is
the impossibility of success. He describes wisdom on vertical and horizontal planes. On the vertical scale he says wisdom is "deep, very deep." Measured horizontally, he says it is "far off." The author is wise enough to know that the realities of this world are too deep to plumb and too vast to be captured. No finite man can give "a detailed accounting" of life. He says much the same thing earlier in 1:13, "13 And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with." According to our text this morning, he wants to seek out, not only wisdom but "to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness." This only makes sense. If you hope to make sense of a world ravaged by sin, you will want to become an expert on the wickedness and folly that taint this world. In chapter one, he says, "17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind." 3

As he is searching to know more about the folly and madness of this world, he records a discovery he has made in verse 26. "And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. At first blush it may seem strange that in his search for wickedness and foolishness sin in the world, the author mentions one immoral woman. Some scholars believe he uses the woman as a metaphor for all the sin and folly in the world. Proverbs chapter nine speaks of folly as a loud, seductive woman. That could be the case, but if the author were speaking of wickedness in a general sense, he could have easily put this differently. He uses a definite article—"
the woman who is more bitter than death" and unlike Proverbs chapter nine—he doesn’t specifically identify her as "the woman Folly." One scholar says his wording here makes it seem that he is referring to a woman who attempted to destroy him through seduction.

The question is—why does Qohelet isolate this one sin of sexual immorality in this one woman as representative of all folly and wickedness? There’s surely more to wickedness than sexual sin. When we do a brief survey on this topic of sexual sin in the Bible, this becomes more clear. The pervasive and defining sin of the Jews in the Old Testament is--idolatry. But one of the main reasons the Jews were so strongly pulled away by the idolatrous religions of their neighboring nations is because at the heart of pagan idol worship was sexual sin with prostitutes who plied their trade in the pagan shrines. This was part of pagan cultic worship. The Jews came to believe (with their pagan neighbors) that illicit activity with these shrine prostitutes was a way of communing with the gods.
3 One of the more common designations for Israel in their sin is the "adulterous wife," and a "prostitute." The scholars tell us that, "The actual [physical] adultery of many Israelites with the cultic prostitutes generated the language of spiritual adultery, which

3
"Adultery, Cultic Prostitution and Idolatry," New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, 2000, (T.D. Alexander &B.S. Rosner, ED) Electronic edition, Downer’s Grove, IL InterVarsity Press. 4

denotes the turning away of Israel from Yahweh to foreign gods

."4 The physical adultery of the Jews was a central expression of their spiritual adultery. This is why in Romans chapter one where Paul describes the wrath of God being poured out against humanity, he focuses on our root sin of idolatry—relating to and worshipping other things as God--but next he unbreakably links our idolatry to sexual sin. You can see the air-tight connection between our idolatrous hearts and sexual sin in Romans one because Paul tells us that God’s reaction to people’s idolatry is in giving them over to sexual impurity. Later, in verse 25 idolatry is again mentioned as the root sin. "They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen." People don’t want to believe in God so in their self-deception, they choose to believe in false gods—creatures created by God. But in verse 26 Paul tells us that in response to their idolatry, God in his wrath gives people over to "dishonorable passions" which he details as sexual sins, including homosexual sin.

4 Ibid.


When you look at the entire Bible, sexual sin is seen as BOTH an
expression of our idolatrous hearts AND God’s judgment on our sinful bent toward idolatry. Given the centrality of sexual sin as both the expression of our idolatry and God’s judgment on humanity, it’s perfectly consistent for the author of Ecclesiastes to use sexual sin as the example par excellence of all that is folly and wickedness within humanity. The point here is: Sexual sin is a representative emblem of our wickedness and rebellion against God. The next question is—if he wants to call our attention to the wickedness of the human condition by highlighting sexual sin, why does he only mention a seductive woman? Aren’t men guilty of sexual sin too—why does he highlight women here—as if they were the only, or even the main instigators of sexual sin? One answer to that question is—Ecclesiastes is part of the wisdom literature of the Bible and unlike other references to sexual sin—especially in the New Testament, this is frequently how the 5

wisdom literature conveys sexual sin. In the Proverbs, in nearly every instance where sexual sin is discussed, the context is a father giving counsel to his son. You might think his counsel would sound like,
"preserve yourself from the fire that rages within you" "let not your own sinful passions lead you into the arms of the prostitute." That’s not how the wisdom literature and even at some points the Old Testament talks about sexual sin. It’s about "preserve[ing]… you from the evil woman," [Prov. 2:16] and "[being] delivered from the forbidden woman" [Prov 6:24]. The main perpetrators of sexual sin in the wisdom literature are the "prostitutes" and "adulteresses." Why? First, prostitution—which is a significant theme in the Proverbs, was the major expression of sexual sin in Israel. This is because of the pagan cult prostitutes mentioned earlier but also because for some women who had no one to take care of them, prostitution kept them and their family from starving to death. The preferred vehicle for sexual sin was prostitution. People didn’t just casually "sleep around" in Bible times nor do they in many parts of the world today.

In verse 26 Qohelet speaks of "…something more bitter than death;
the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters..." Sexual sin—as exemplified by this woman is described in terms of "snares and nets…and fetters." This is the language of entrapment, bondage and enslavement. One of the lessons this text as well as the rest of the Bible teaches is—Sexual sin blinds us to the Biblical warnings of its unique power to enslave us. Jesus says in John 8:34, "34 …Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin." All sin enslaves. Sins are not simply external acts of disobedience—they possess spiritual power to entrap us and hold us fast. Anyone who has fallen to sexual sin has experienced this. Sexual sin has a particularly "addictive" quality to it. It’s visceral. Proverbs 23:27-28 again uses women to represent sexual sin and says, "27 For a prostitute is a deep pit; an adulteress is a narrow well. 28 She lies in wait like a robber and increases the traitors among mankind." A deep pit and narrow well describe sexual sin because both are easy to fall into, 6

but very difficult to escape. It’s easy for sexual sin to take hold of our hearts, but much, much more difficult to be free from. It’s also very stealthy—it "lies in wait like a robber"—it sneaks up on us. The temptation to sexual sin doesn’t come with a warning label—like a pack of cigarettes. No, it’s "bait"—its allure is the promise of pleasure that deceptively hides the barb of its hook that keeps us from breaking free from it after we know we are caught in it. Several studies have indicated that the physiological addictive qualities of pornography impact the human brain in the same way and with the same force as an addition to crack cocaine which is more addictive than heroine. You can get free of addiction to pornography in Christ, but you will need help from others—humbling yourself is crucial for freedom.

Sexual activity with others creates what Paul calls a "one-flesh" relationship. First Corinthians 6:16 says, "
16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, "The two will become one flesh." This one-flesh relationship is a nuclear-powered bond given by God as a blessing to help preserve and keep marriages together against the onslaught of our selfishness and a world that wars against marriage. The problem is--this extremely powerful sexual bond is created in any sexual encounter, not just marriage. Paul says this spiritual bond is created even in a one-time act with a prostitute whose name you might not even know. Even without any formal acquaintance with a person, a nuclear-powered relational bond is achieved between a man and a woman. Again, God intends this bond for good to strengthen marriages, but Satan also knows the bonding power of sexual intimacy and he seeks to use it to short-circuit the normal development of a male/female relationship. For instance, two young people are physically attracted to each other. In many cases, if they were to pursue a healthy, non-sexual personal relationship, they would discover that, although they have a physical attraction to each other, a marriage to the person would be unwise for any number of reasons. Perhaps they’re simply too different from each other or have personal habits 7

or attitudes or idiosyncrasies that would not make them appealing as a spouse. As we’ll see later—perhaps they are not spiritually compatible. In a non-sexual context, one or both of the people would eventually come to the conclusion that marriage to that person would not be right.

However, if those two become sexually active before marriage and before they get to really know each other, that nuclear-powered, one-flesh bond is established prematurely. This injects into the relationship something it is not ready for and is so powerful that it frequently over-rides the normal progression of the relationship. The reason is because the couple has sinfully injected
a powerful blinding agent into the relationship. This premature sexual bond is so powerful it will short-circuit the normal process of interpersonal discovery and discernment and cause two people who are not necessarily well-fitted for marriage to be blind to that fact and deceive themselves into thinking they are made for each other. Their sexual bond is so powerful that it distorts what would have been their normal perception of each other. In many cases, these couples become engaged and marry. But the power of the sexual bond decreases over time as it’s confronted with the challenges of marriage to a person who in many ways may not be right for them. As that occurs, the couple begins to realize that what they thought was a relationship rooted in genuine love and respect is instead rooted in the much less stable ground of sexual lust. A few years into the marriage, the blinding power of the sexual bond is gone that would allowed the couple to see each other more objectively had they not chosen through their sexual sin to over-ride the natural progression of the relationship. Unless they are committed to making the marriage work for reasons other than sexual satisfaction, people often decide at this point they don’t love the person anymore. In truth, they never did—but their capacity to realize that was simply overwhelmed by their hormones. This explains why study after 8

study indicates that couples that engage in pre-marital sex are more likely to divorce than those couples who do not.5


5 A helpful summary of these studies is found here--
http://pastors.com/premarital-sex-divorce-is-there-a-link/

It’s this power to enslave people that causes sexual sin to dehumanize people—reducing people to little more than instinct-driven animals. Men and women created in God’s image for dominion over this planet—created to be temples of the living God in sacred union with him—when sexual sin is introduced into relationships before marriage, they are reduced to little more than a jumble of glands and hormones—driven, NOT by what is best for them—not by what will glorify God, but by what will satisfy their creaturely appetites. Their uncontrolled drives that capture them "in snares and nets and fetters" hold them fast and ultimately rob them of joy because it compels them to enter into relationships that are hurtful and self-destructive. Many is the believer—mostly women—who are blinded to the fact that their fiancé does not love Jesus and will not be willing or able to shepherd them spiritually because they became sexually active before marriage. At some point, after the ring is on her finger the blinding haze of their sexual sin evaporates and to her horror she begins to clearly see that she has made a huge mistake because the one she has vowed to spend the rest of her life with is in fact—a pagan who is in no way equipped to shepherd her or their children spiritually.

God can and does redeem sexual sin in sincere believers. The gospel can set people free from this powerfully entangling sin and unbelieving spouses can come to know Christ. God is bigger than our sin and he can take what the enemy intends for evil and turn it for our good, but that process is often intensely painful and there are no guarantees things will work out as we had planned. Verse 26 gives us guarded hope. "He who pleases God escapes her—this exemplification of sexual sin—but the sinner is taken by her." God can deliver us from sexual sin, but it takes much grace and cannot be done in a vacuum—it always requires help from other believers. "God givers grace to the humble—those who admit they are trapped—but he
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opposes the proud"—those who are too proud to tell anyone of their sin and the shame they feel from it.

People in our generation require even more grace than in the past to stay clear of sexual sin because the popular culture at one time helped us out by placing a stigma on sexual sin. Now that stigma is completely gone and is now on those who have a Biblical worldview on human sexuality. Those who hold a Biblical view of sex are maligned as cosmic killjoys who are laughably, horribly antiquated in their unrealistic expectations. The pressure to engage in sexual sin is at an all-time high in North America. Even with the clearly manifest destructive consequences of sexual sin like the increased rate of divorce and the destruction of marriages and families, the exponential increase in abortions and unwed mothers—to name only a few, the world has boldly advanced its mistaken arguments that sexual activity outside marriage is both inevitable and harmless. After highlighting the prevalence of sexual sin within our sinfulness, the author concludes his argument in verses 27-29. "
27 Behold, this is what I found, says the Preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things—28 which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found. 29 See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes."

The author is saying—"
I have looked and looked and found nothing that makes sense of life—well, one thing—there are a very few good, upright, capable, reliable men—maybe one in a thousand--but my experience has not turned up any such women. But the one thing I am sure of—God made humanity good, but they have found many ways to mess things up." This is yet another difficult text because it seems to be saying that though good men are as rare as hen’s teeth, good women don’t exist at all. That cannot be true because it would mean that men are in some way morally superior to women and there is no evidence of that in or out of Scripture. "ALL have sinned—[female AND male] -- and fall short of the glory of God." A couple 10

of things must be said here. First, we know that the author of Ecclesiastes often speaks from two perspectives. He speaks of things "under the sun"—that is—from his own observation without God in the picture and—he sometimes speaks from God’s perspective. Sometimes it’s easy to tell where he is coming from because of markers in the text, but sometimes it is not as easy. When he speaks of his "under the sun" perspective, he is giving his own private perspective uninformed by God. In this text, he has already told us that his search for a way to account for all things in this life has been a dry well. Here, in the midst of a confession that he has not found the key to life, he makes two observations, one is his own fallen observation and the other is informed by God.

The comment he makes about men and women is his own personal observation based on his own unique experience. "One man among a thousand
I found, but a woman among all these I have not found." As a former king of Israel, he would have had very little contact with women and those women he would have known would have been his concubines or wives. The concubines were little more than property and a king’s wife was often more a political tool than someone meaningful to him. With his very unique and very limited perspective on women, it’s not surprising that he has not found—a woman who is virtuous. He evidently did not have a Proverbs 31 woman as a wife. If anything, in the context, this places men in a more negative light. He’s met and worked with scores of men and finds one good one in a thousand. He’s had very limited and atypical relationships with women and had found none. We know that although all Scripture is inspired, but in this case his observation about women is an instance of an inspired account of his own ignorance—like when King Saul repeatedly wrongly claimed that David was seeking his throne. His claim is in the Bible which makes it inspired, but it’s an example of God’s inspired truth revealing the ignorance of a man.

The main point he makes is not about men or women, but about humanity in general inverse 29. "See, this alone I found, that God made man upright,
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but they have sought out many schemes." The truth here is—
Any genuine search for wisdom will place the responsibility for evil on humanity, not God. This is very important because when we thought last week about why bad things happen to good people, the answer is not—in spite of what Harold Kushner and others believe, "it’s God’s fault." God created this world—including humanity and called it "very good." Though he is sovereign over the fall—it was part of his sovereign plan—he is not responsible for Adam’s sin or ours. He’s not responsible for the bombs in Boston and their devastation. He’s not responsible for the horrors of the fertilizer plant explosion in Texas. Fault can be assessed in both those instances but it does not lie with God. When people gripe about God and all the evil in the world, it’s important that we hold these two Biblical truths in tension. Namely, though God is sovereign over all, but he is not responsible for human sin. God is sovereign and sinful humanity is responsible for sin. When events like those of this past week transpire, the church should in most cases not engage in long, involved discussion about God and the problem of evil. The statement the author of Ecclesiastes makes is in many cases sufficient. "…God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes." That is wisdom.

As we close, if you are here today trapped in sexual sin whether it be premarital sex, adultery, pornography or homosexual desires—the gospel is big enough to set you free and allow you to relate to God’s gift of sex in ways that will bless and strengthen you, not place you in snares, traps and fetters. One of the ways in which many of us are trapped is the television. The television is not uniquely evil, but it does have unique access to our minds. Even so called "good" programs are at times inappropriate. The next time you’re watching a man and a woman relate to each other on the screen—passionately kissing or worse—even if shown "discreetly," would you want two people in your living room doing that?...in front of your kids? Yet you have invited them into your living room. Paul says the way we deal with sexual sin is to "FLEE!" Get out of there. Jesus says that if our right
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hand causes us to sin, cut it off. If our eye causes us to sin, poke it out. That is—whatever it takes to stop sinning, do it. I’m not telling you to throw out your television, but given the content of so much of what is on there, it’s worth asking God—"
Lord, Is this what poking my eye out looks like?" May God use his truth to set us free for his glory and our joy.