The School Of Hard Knocks Series

The School of Hard Knocks

Ecclesiastes 7:14-29

Rev. Brian Bill

October 12-13, 2024

Several years ago, I came across some of my old report cards. My lowest grades in Junior High were in Band and Spanish – I haven’t made much improvement in language or the arts over the years. In High School, Spanish, Math, and Zoology caused me much distress. You might get a kick out of one of my college report cards. For one semester, my lowest grade was in Public Speaking! Some of you are not surprised by this one.

Since my Spanish in High School was “muy malo,” I decided to take Italian in college, which was a huge mistake. I realized I was in trouble when the professor told us after the first day of class, he would not speak any more English. Everything would be in Italian from that point on.

I languished with this language, getting a “D” for the semester. The next semester I had a TA (Teaching Assistant) who wouldn’t speak English either (what’s up with that?). But then something very exciting happened. The TA’s went on strike! That meant I didn’t have to go to class. We were supposed to keep up with our work, but I didn’t crack a book for weeks. When the strike was over, I went back to class and ended up with an “Incomplete” for a grade. The next semester I actually got an “F.”

I felt like a failure and wanted to bail on college. I hung in there, eventually getting saved and then after four years at the University of Wisconsin, transferred to Moody Bible Institute, where my grades were much better (that’s probably because they didn’t offer Italian or math). Those feelings of failure, however, stayed with me for a long time, and came back to the surface when we were missionaries in Mexico, and I struggled to learn Spanish.

Have you ever felt like a failure and just wanted to quit? Does it feel like you’re just taking the same class over and over, wondering if you’ll ever pass the course?

Actually, we’ve all been enrolled in the School of Hard Knocks. This is an idiomatic phrase referring to the painful education one gets from life’s negative experiences. As we’ve been learning in our study of Ecclesiastes, Solomon was a student in the school of dissatisfaction as he vainly searched for meaning and significance under the sun. He earned a lot of incompletes and failed every course he took.

As we finish Ecclesiastes 7 today, let’s refresh our memories of what we learned in the first half of this chapter three weeks ago.

• It’s better to have a good reputation than great riches.

• It’s better to participate in a funeral than to party at a feast.

• It’s better to listen to a rebuke than to go through life laughing.

• It’s better to be patient than proud.

• It’s better to live in the present than to be locked into the past.

• It’s better to have faith in God’s providence than to fight against Him.

Let’s pick up Solomon’s search as we focus on eight lessons learned in the School of Hard Knocks from Ecclesiastes 7:15-29.

Here’s our main idea: Life only makes sense when we live it for the Lord.

1. Understand life is often unfair. Let’s turn our attention to verse 15: “In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing.” As Solomon got older, he realized his life had been brief and empty. He felt like he had seen it all and had experienced everything life had to offer.

It especially bothered him that the righteous don’t always prosper, nor do the wicked always suffer. This same conundrum is addressed by Asaph in Psalm 73:3: “For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” This angst was expressed in a question asked by Job in Job 21:7: “Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power?”

Solomon struggled when he saw a righteous man perish while an unrighteous man lived a prolonged life. It’s certainly true that some righteous people die way too young, while those who seem wicked often live too long. One heartbreaking story that came out of Hurricane Helene was when a mother, her parents, and her 7-year-old son were up on the roof of their house while the water was rising. When the building started coming apart, they were all tossed into the raging water. The mother survived, but her parents and son drowned. Nothing about that seems fair, does it?

Life only makes sense when we live it for the Lord.