Upside Down: Ecclesiastes

A Pair of Threes: Ecclesiastes 11:1-6

Three Things We Do Not Know

1. How to Predict the Future

1 Cast your bread upon the waters, For you will find it after many days.

2 Give a serving to seven, and also to eight, For you do not know what evil will be on the earth. —Ecclesiastes 11:1-2

3 If the clouds are full of rain, They empty themselves upon the earth; And if a tree falls to the south or the north, In the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie.

4 He who observes the wind will not sow, And he who regards the clouds will not reap. —Ecclesiastes 11:3-4

2. How to Do What Only God Can Do

5 As you do not know what is the way of the wind, Or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, So you do not know the works of God who makes everything. —Ecclesiastes 11:5

“Have you commanded the morning since your days began, And caused the dawn to know its place, —Job 38:12

“Where is the way to the dwelling of light? And darkness, where is its place, 20 That you may take it to its territory, That you may know the paths to its home? —Job 38:19,20

3. How to Guarantee Success and Avoid Failure

6 In the morning sow your seed, And in the evening do not withhold your hand; For you do not know which will prosper, Either this or that, Or whether both alike will be good. —Ecclesiastes 11:6

Three Things We Know

1. It is Wise to Have a Light Hold on Life and Possessions

1 Cast your bread upon the waters, For you will find it after many days.

2 Give a serving to seven, and also to eight, For you do not know what evil will be on the earth. —Ecclesiastes 11:1-2

16 Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. 17 And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ 18 So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” ’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’ 21 “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” —Luke 12:16-21

When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 35 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? 37 Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? —Mark 8:34-37

“and indeed a greater than Solomon is here.” —Luke 11:31

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much [d]grain. 25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. —John 12:24-25

“Here is wisdom you will not hear anywhere else: take the best of what you have and the best of what you are and give them away. Hold them out in open hands to God and to others. Worldly wisdom builds bunkers and barns to prepare for disaster. Biblical wisdom throws open the windows and doors of our homes and builds schools, hopsitals, churches and see rich Christians become much much poorer that they might otherwise have been. Christlike wisdom grows believers who spend their life on living in the world rather than on living in the world so as not to die.” David Gibson, Living Life Backward. Pg. 126

2. Wisdom Means that Neither Success or Failure is Ultimate