In Mike Davenport's sermon "One Among A Thousand," he examines Ecclesiastes 7:13-29, focusing on the themes of divine sovereignty and human limitations. The sermon encourages believers to accept what God has made crooked, to fear God above all else, and to avoid relying on their own understanding. Davenport warns against being 'overly righteous' or 'overly wise,' which he defines as self-righteousness and self-acquired wisdom devoid of the fear of God. He underscores that true wisdom and righteousness come from God and that fearing Him leads to escaping the pitfalls of self-destructive tendencies. The sermon also highlights the rarity of finding truly God-fearing individuals, urging believers to strive to be 'one among a thousand' by trusting in God's wisdom and grace. Davenport concludes by emphasizing the need to walk the narrow path that leads to life, which requires shedding pride and relying solely on Christ.

The sermon text is Ecclesiastes, chapter 7, beginning in verse 13 to the end of the chapter. So please follow along in your copy of God's Word. Consider the work of God, For who can make straight what he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider. Surely God has appointed the one as well as the other so that man can find out nothing that will come after him.

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 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 found 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. 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.

Let's pray. Lord God, we come to you as a people who Truly need your wisdom And God our wisdom is so limited So finite we are fools in comparison to your wisdom God by your wisdom may you strengthen our elder as he brings your word. May your wisdom shine through in these words and the message. God may the wisdom you impart to us today draw us to you to conform us to your ultimate display of wisdom which is Christ. And Lord may your wisdom make us joyful that we have come to know and love and fear the one true God who has made us for himself.

Lord, may you be glorified today and may you change us as we need to be changed through your work in this service today. In Christ's name, amen. Well, as we take up the text before us this morning, I want to give a brief summary of Ecclesiastes. This will, I hope, accomplish two things. First, it will give anyone visiting with us an overall context of the entire book and hopefully grant greater insight into the very text before us this morning.

But second of all, it will give the rest of us who have been here from the start of our study of this book, a reminder of what this journey through this book is all about. Sometimes we can get lost in a text and forget how it fits into the overall journey. Now, this summary that I want to give is actually a product description of a book written on Ecclesiastes, a book that I don't have, I've not read based on this description. Even though we're nearing the end of Ecclesiastes, I may just get it anyway. The author of the book is Stanley Gale, and the title of the book is Making Sanity Out of Vanity, Christian realism in the book of Ecclesiastes and here's what it says Somehow there is a myth Floating around that when you follow Jesus life has certain tangible perks When your father is God and Jesus is the reigning king, you expect that finances won't be quite as tight, relationships will be easier, and life will be a bit merrier.

A little bit of false advertising. Seemingly innocent expectations, But these beliefs are far from innocent. When you expect wine and roses and end up with gruel, your confidence in the Lord wanes. Maybe, you wonder, this relationship with Christ is just a life insurance policy after all. It is good for when you die, but costly for when you live.

Life insurance policies are boring at best. Maybe the Bible has no real-world application. And what about the many men and women who jettison their faith because they encounter suffering, lots of suffering, and following Christ seems to make absolutely no difference. They have been spared nothing. There is a rule in suffering.

The more intense the suffering, the more alone you feel from both other people and the Lord. There are times when life is a painful mess, and if God doesn't speak to us in the midst of that mess, why bother? In Ecclesiastes the description goes on to say, God speaks into the mess. Ecclesiastes is not about happy thoughts that deny earthly realities. Instead, the preacher, along with the other voice we hear in Ecclesiastes, open our eyes even wider than normal.

They take us to all the hard places. They hear our questions and run further with them until all is laid bare. Every once in a while you might think that Ecclesiastes is written by a dour existentialist. But somehow, even before you get to the end of the book, you can tell that this examination of life will end in hope and result in more meaning and fullness than we can comprehend. Well, I trust that we are sensing that very shift in the book, that this examination of life here in Ecclesiastes will end in hope and result in more meaning and fullness than we can comprehend.

The title of this morning sermon is One Among a Thousand. One Among a Thousand. And this is my desire for each of you this morning that you, you will be that one among a thousand. My outline reflects how it is that one becomes one among a thousand. First, learning to accept what God has made crooked.

Learning to accept what God has made crooked. Second, learning to fear God above all things. Learning to fear God above all things. And then third, learning to lean not on your own understanding. Learning to lean not on your own understanding.

Learning to lean not on your own understanding. So first point, learning to accept what God has made crooked. We see that in verses 13 through 17. Consider the work of God, for who can make straight what he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity, be joyful, but in the day of adversity, consider.

Surely God has appointed the one as well as the other so that man can find out nothing that will come after him. 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? So Solomon has just discussed the vanity of trying to make straight what God has made crooked. He has mentioned and reminded us that that God actually appoints days of adversity as well as prosperity and that man has not been granted ability to see, to grasp, to understand how things are going to play out. And in the middle of such acknowledgement, Solomon acknowledges that such crookedness is the work of the very hand of God.

He has seen the life of the righteous cut off early. He has seen as well the days of wicked men prolonged. It's contrary to what we expect, maybe even to what we demand. We would never preach a prosperity gospel, But dear ones, do our reactions to God's dealings with us in this world not reveal at times in our hearts some sort of treaty that we've made with this prosperity gospel, some sort of uncommunicated expectations. It's the very thing that almost totally unraveled Asaph to the core.

Psalm 73, go and read it. Their Asaph's determination to straighten what God had made crooked almost took him over the cliff. Well, Solomon then seems to envision his readers responding to what he's witnessed. He seems to envision worldly and vain reactions to these two events, Events that he expects that we've seen for ourselves that we have have we not the early death of a righteous man or woman as well as the Prosperity of someone who could rightly be designated wicked. They just seem to be going on in their wickedness.

Man's natural reaction to such seeming injustice finds no satisfaction. It finds no rest in declaring God as the author of this adversity. The reaction is what demands an answer to the often asked and overused question, a question that became a title of a best-selling book, Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? Dear ones, Are we mocking the title of such a book and yet asking the same question in our own hearts? We've seen it.

We've seen it. And so Solomon envisions four responses, and he groups them somewhat together in two groups. The two groups are seemingly at opposite extremes, But each extreme has a couple of paths that run sort of parallel in many ways. Different paths but parallel. The first group Solomon refers to is those whom he calls overly righteous and overly wise.

And so these two paths, they are different paths, but they actually run parallel in one direction. To understand the designation of overly righteous and the designation of overly wise, we must understand that this is not, It's not a righteousness and wisdom that finds its beginning and its end in God, but in ourselves. And it will be clear as we proceed with this passage that this righteousness and this wisdom are totally devoid of the fear of God. This is self-righteousness and self-acquired wisdom. This is the righteousness that the rich young ruler had, the one who came to Jesus wanting to know how he could inherit eternal life.

His view of the law demonstrated that he was in fact overly righteous. As were the Pharisees of Christ's day who left the weightier matters of the law but were overly righteous in their tithing of their spices, who trampled underfoot all honor to their parents for the sake of contributions to the temple, of contributions to the temple who will see to it that the God of glory is crucified but will hasten home that afternoon to get home before the Sabbath starts. Overly wise. Solomon himself is an example of what it means to be overly wise. Think about it.

When he took the throne, he was well aware of his lack of wisdom. He was aware of it. When God came to him at the beginning of his reign and asked him, What will you have from my hand?" Solomon said to God, Now, O Lord God, let your promise to David my father be established, for you have made me king over a people like the dust of the earth in multitude. Now give me wisdom and knowledge that I may go out and come in before the people. For who can judge this great people of yours?" He saw his need and he went to God with that need.

What was God's response? Then God said to Solomon, because this was in your heart and you have not asked riches or wealth or honor or the life of your enemies, nor have you asked long life, but have asked wisdom and knowledge for yourself, that you may judge my people over whom I have made you king. Wisdom and knowledge are granted to you. So God granted Solomon wisdom, but it was evidently not sufficient for Solomon. This God-given promise of wisdom not sufficient.

Here in this text before us, Solomon later on would declare, I will be wise. So much for that one who was on his knees saying, God, who can judge this people? Give me wisdom. Give me knowledge. And so we see he applied his heart to know, to search, and to seek out wisdom.

And the reason of things, what was behind the wisdom, to know also the wickedness, the folly, even the foolishness and madness, something that God would never give him. And though it seems Solomon never went down the path of overly righteous, he certainly went down the path of overly wise, maybe cutting some of the way into that path with his own two hands. Well, Solomon here in these two responses is picturing someone who has determined that by their own doing they will make straight what God has made crooked. By their own righteousness, by their own wisdom, they will bring about the end result that seems fitting and proper. They will make their own way.

They don't need the righteousness or the wisdom of another, not even of God. Such was the attitude of the people of Isaiah's day to the adversity that God brought upon them. In his prophecy Isaiah in chapter 9 verse 10, he prophesies against those who say in pride and arrogance of heart, the bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stones. The sycamores are cut down, but we will replace them with cedars." Where does this path lead? It leads to self-destruction.

It leads to self-destruction. The desolation of everything one has worked for, is that where you want to wind up. The other two paths that run parallel and are therefore grouped together seem to go the opposite direction, and I purposefully used that word seem, and I will share why in just a few minutes Those who take these two paths They like Solomon see the righteous man cut off early and over there the wicked man prolonging life in his wickedness, and they come to the conclusion that the best course of action is to give themselves without reserve to wickedness and foolishness. What's the point? Eat and drink for tomorrow we die.

Throw caution to the wind. I'm taking one of these two paths. Such a life fits nicely with their own sinful passions. And these folks are those whom Peter describes in his first epistle, chapter 4 verses 3 through 5. He says, talking to the Christians, for we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries.

In regard to these, they, these overly wicked and foolish, they think it's strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation. Speaking evil of you, they will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. But these are those who just run and they run in this flood of dissipation. Well, getting back to the fact that these two groups of paths seem to be going in opposite directions. Dear ones, don't be deceived by the seeming difference in direction that the paths go.

The two paths of overly wicked and foolish are not the only paths that lead to hell. Paths that lead to hell. The paths of overly righteous and overly wise may look like they are going in the right direction, but they veer off the supposed path and will in and of themselves take you straight to hell. You children, you children, you young adults, I fear for you. I really do.

If you don't hear anything else I say this morning, please hear what I am about to say. You are blessed to have been placed in a Christian family. You are blessed to be in a church that teaches to the best of its ability the whole counsel of God. You are blessed with godly parents who strive for holiness. You hear a lot.

You know a lot. Much is expected of you. But I want to place a huge warning label, the biggest label I can find, and I want to place it on your forehead. This is what that label would say. Warning.

Warning. This reformed homeschool product contains ingredients that may cause certain unwanted symptoms. Side effects may include pride, also known as overly wise, as well as self-righteousness, also known as overly righteous. Studies have also shown that in some, this product has caused an adverse reaction that plummets them on a course of abandonment. Abandonment from what they have learned and abandonment to a life of foolishness and wickedness which may terminate in early death.

That's the warning label. And I fear for you, because your upbringing apart from Christ sets you on one of those directions. It does. And we're not doing it on purpose. Our desire is God to get a hold of your hearts So that you don't Become overly righteous and you don't become overly wise But neither that you abandon everything that you've learned and become overly wicked and foolish Without Christ you will begin to despise these blessings from the hand of God.

Without Christ you will turn these very blessings into a curse. The paths of self-righteousness and worldly wisdom will lead you to self-destruction. They will leave you totally desolate. The paths of foolishness and wickedness will lead to your being cut off before your time Dear children dear young adults Do not be overly righteous self-righteous Do not be overly wise a wisdom that you just gained from hearing and hearing and hearing. Do not be overly wicked.

Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, and we'll see in a few minutes there's not even a just man who does good and does not sin, but don't be overly wicked. Don't seek out those paths, and don't be foolish. To be that one among a thousand, we must learn to accept what God has made crooked. But not only that, we must secondly be learning to fear God above all things. Learning to fear God above all things.

Learning to fear God above all things. Verses 18 to 22. 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 ten rulers of the city, for there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin. Also, do not 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.

The answer to the dilemma of the pre-mature death of the just man must not be a greater deliberation in pursuit of righteousness and wisdom. The response to the prosperity of the wicked men around us must not be the abandoning of self to a deliberation and pursuit of wickedness and foolishness. Solomon declares that it is a good thing that as a man considers what God has made crooked, that he must lay hold of what Solomon is about to say, and at the same time not let go of the counsel just given in relation to these two tendencies in man to either escape the days of adversity or prolong the days of prosperity. What is that what is it that Solomon wants us to grasp? What is it?

It's only one simple thing. There is one response that will keep us from mishandling the providence of our God, and that response is simply to fear God. Grasp this, Solomon says. Fear God. This was the very conclusion that Solomon back in chapter 3 came to as he came to grips with the reality of God's purposes for the changing scenes of this life.

He's already told us. God does it, he said, that men should fear before Him. Only in fearing God will we escape first the tendencies to be overly righteous, overly wise, overly wicked, and foolish. Only in fearing God will we be secondly able to escape the results of these tendencies, destroying ourselves and dying before our time. The one who fears God, Solomon says, will escape them all.

He'll escape them all, both the tendencies and what those tendencies produce. In verse 19, we have the results that will follow should you heed Solomon's advice. Fleeing such tendencies in ourselves and fearing God instead is the path of true wisdom. It's wisdom that he's talking about. These are those things of wisdom.

He has just said fear God. So why would we not expect him to talk of wisdom? He told us in Proverbs that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom And so he's saying if you start off on the right path not the overly wise path but you start out with the fear of God, you'll wind up with a wisdom that gives you strength. A wisdom that gives you strength. More literally, in the Hebrew, it'll give you security.

That's what's intended in that word as well, security. Solomon introduces a more than statement as he compares the security of this wisdom to ten rulers of a city. Now that word ruler can also be translated powerful one, powerful one. And that seems to better fit the idea of security. The security provided by a godly wisdom excels the security a city feels when guarded by ten mighty warriors because the wisdom of the wise is a wisdom that proceeds from the fear of God, and that gives strength, and that gives security.

When the verses that follow, Solomon assumes that our tendency will be to take one of those first two paths, the path of righteousness or wisdom and not the path of wickedness and foolishness. First, he gives us in verses 20 to 22 reasons to not be overly righteous. If we're directed by this fear of God and we're operating under the realization that He's causing all things to happen in our lives, then we won't be overly righteous. And we see that here in these verses. And in verse 20, we actually come face to face with the reality that for us There really is no such thing as being too righteous You see there are some who twist these exhortations against being overly righteous and overly wise as well as overly wicked and they take these things and they call out people to take some middle road.

Don't be too goody-two-shoes and certainly don't be like the worst one ever. Just kind of fit in between. Don't be overly righteous, overly wise, but don't go too far the other direction either. For any who would hold to such an idea, I simply ask this question. If we are commanded to be holy, even as God is holy.

If God's very purpose in saving us is to conform us into the image of Jesus Christ, then what exactly does being too righteous look like? What does that look like? Define it for me. I'm to be holy like God. I'm to be conformed to the image of Christ.

So in that sense, we can't be too righteous, so that can't be what it means. True wisdom acknowledges that God alone is truly righteous. We're not trying to manufacture this righteousness in ourselves. We've come face to face with the understanding only our God is righteous. True wisdom confesses that there's not a single man on earth, not even a just man who only does good and does not sin.

So rather than seeking for a righteousness of our own, which would indeed be overly righteous, we rather seek a righteousness that is found in Christ alone. Don't be overly righteous. Go to Christ. Go to Christ. And we have in these verses an example of an overly righteous person a Response that they give as well as a stark reminder that we're not as righteous as we think we are.

And this example hits too close to home for comfort. It does, doesn't it? Have you ever heard what someone else has said about you? And it bugs you? It bothers you?

Makes you angry? Or even worse, do you ever try to listen into a conversation or read an email or a text that wasn't addressed to you? In order to find out what someone may be saying about you Solomon says that wisdom does not take such things to heart. Wisdom doesn't take such things to heart. It doesn't store it away for use as evidence.

It doesn't allow it to affect your day there is no harboring of it just to letting go a releasing This is what wisdom rooted in the fear of God does. It's what it does. That's the measuring stick. Don't call it something else. But one who is overly righteous can't let it go they can't let it go It must be addressed it must be accounted for There is an utter rather convenient forgetfulness of one's own culpability.

What if all our words, maybe spoken in private, were broadcast for each and every person to hear, including those whom we have spoken about. You see, in reality, this is no different than the self-righteousness of that servant who owed his master a great debt and it was all forgiven him. And what did he do? He went out and found a fellow servant, grabbed him by the servant grabbed him by the throat said pay me every penny you owe me he had forgotten the debt that was his. And this says Solomon, our culpability, our culpability, This has happened many times, many times, and our own heart witnesses against us.

Your own heart knows that you many times, many times have done the same. Heed the counsel of Solomon. And if you don't be aware that you think higher of yourself than you ought to think, and you will be judged by God according to the same standard that you meet out to others. There is so little of the fear of God in this world. To be one among a thousand, we must not only learn to accept that which God has made crooked, we must also learn to live out our days in the fear of God with an accurate knowledge of who he is and an accurate assessment of who we are.

Now thirdly and finally, be the one learning to lean not on your own understanding. Learning to lean not on your own understanding. Starting in 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 exceedingly deep, who can find it out?

I applied my heart to know, to search, and to 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. Here's 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." In the opening verses of this section, it would seem that Solomon, by means of his own testimony, declares that his own pursuit was a pursuit of being overly wise.

Having just given us a brief look at what it means to be overly righteous, I think he turns to himself to describe what it means to be overly wise. And I think by virtue of his testimony that follows these opening verses, a testimony regarding the the women in his life, as well as the other accounts in Scripture of Solomon's life, his was never a pursuit of being overly righteous. Solomon does not want us to throw out everything he is talking about and everything he wants to say based solely on the fact that He is about to tell us that he has never quite found out what he was looking for. He never got to the bottom of the reason of all things. He wants us to know that he has proven, that he has tested all that he is sharing with us by wisdom itself.

He was determined to be wise. He declares rather unabashedly, I will be wise. What had originally been an earnest desire and the prayer of his heart at the beginning of his reign had now become an insatiable, dominating passion that preoccupied every waking moment. According to verse 25, this preoccupation took him down roads he should have never gone down. He was determined to know the reason of things, something that God has determined that man will never know.

His pursuits also took him down the dark road of wickedness, of folly, of madness. Richard Belcher states that Solomon does not prejudice his search toward wisdom and righteousness, nor does he make his starting point the fear of God, but he places wisdom and righteousness on the same level as wickedness and foolishness in his investigation of the meaning of life. But recall what happens to the man who seeks to be overly wise. Like the self-righteous man, he is left desolate. Desolate.

And we read in verses 23 and 24 that this full grasp of wisdom, of understanding what God is doing and why he's doing it, This full grasp was out of his reach. Empty-handed. He's desolate. He doesn't have it. Not only was it constantly too far off, but it was also too deep.

Solomon came to the conclusion the hard way, but to this conclusion he came, who can find it out? Who? Who can find it out? If he couldn't, then we won't. If it was too far out of his reach, my friend, it's out of our sight.

If it was too deep for him, then we can't even stand in the kiddie pool. If he couldn't lean on his own understanding, then certainly we shouldn't. In the middle of this failure to figure it all out, there are actually three things that he did find out. These things he did find out. He was able to figure out and settle on it.

Now remember, these are things that he is tested by wisdom. These are wisdom tested findings. First, bad women are bad news. Bad women are bad news. More bitter than the thought of death itself was being tied to a woman who ends snares.

Note that the kind of woman he is referring to is said to be snares, nets, and fetters. Snares, nets, and fetters. There is a binding nature nature when once you are in her grasp. Men, are you awake? Are you listening?

Veirs nets Fetters You become the hunted you become the prey You become the prey Obviously this applies to real life to escaping the seductress that you may run across at the office, at the gym, at the store. But following up on the message from last week, this applies to escaping the seductress who is just one click away on that pornographic site. One click. One click. She's always there at your back and call.

She'll never turn away. She'll never say no. It doesn't require anything of you and whose pleasures you can enjoy away from the gaze of others. Do you hear Solomon? Do you hear him?

She is more bitter than death. In Proverbs 5 he says that in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell. In Proverbs 10, he who lacks understanding does not know that the dead are there in her house, that her guests are in the depths of hell. Proverbs 6, for by means of a harlot a man is reduced to a crust of bread, and an adulteress will prey upon his precious life.

Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned? Can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be seared? Whoever commits adultery with a woman, And may I apply the teaching of Christ, whoever looks at a woman to lust after her, lacks understanding. He who does so destroys his own soul. Wounds and dishonor he will get, and his reproach will not be wiped away And you can make all sorts of vows you can set up all sorts of technology You can arrange for all manner of number of accountability partners those are not what you ultimately need.

They're not what you need. In these supposed safeguards we can actually feed our tendency to be overly righteous and to be overly wise look I've done this I've done that I haven't looked in three weeks It can feed that tendency to be overly righteous, to be overly wise, but Solomon gives us the clear-cut answer. He who pleases God shall escape her, but the sinner shall be trapped by her. You see, these other things apart From a fear of God and wanting to please him, these other things are nothing but leaning on our own understanding. He who pleases God shall escape.

The second thing that Solomon has for sure found out is that God-fearing men and God-fearing women are hard to find. God-fearing men and God-fearing women are hard to find. He says, one among a thousand I have found. One man, but a woman among all these I have not found. Maybe Solomon was looking among the men of his court as he looked for a man.

And maybe he was looking to his wives and concubines because by the same measure among a thousand he couldn't find one and he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Maybe it was among his own wives and concubines that he was looking. If you want to know what kind of women they were, go and read Nehemiah 13, 25 to 26, and go and read 1 Kings 11, 1 through 8. Among a thousand men he could only find one wise and God-fearing man, And among the same number of women, he found none whom he could declare as wise and God-fearing. And the focus is not to be one versus none.

I guess the men win. The focus is that among 2, 000 men and women, Solomon could only find one. One. One. I want you for a moment to forget what God has done in placing us in a congregation Where more than one can be found I won't you to focus on yourself?

Yourself Will you be that one? Will you? To be that one, you must be learning to accept what God has by His providence made crooked. To be that one, you must be learning to fear God no matter what the circumstances. To be that one, you must be learning to not lean on your own understanding, your own strength.

Why must you lean upon Christ and not your own understanding? Why must you acknowledge Him in all your ways? Because of the third thing that Solomon found out by wisdom. God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. Solomon has been exhorting us in this passage to be done with seeking out our own schemes.

Our own schemes. Be they ever so great sounding, more righteous, more wise, stop seeking your own schemes. God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. God is looking for a man, for a woman, who will stand in the gap, who will make a difference. Will you be the one among a thousand?

My friend, being one among the thousand requires you to go through a narrow gate and enter on to a narrow way. Jesus says, enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction. And there are many who go in by it. Many! Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life and there are few who find it.

You see there are many who are on the road to destruction and it's a broad path. It's got many paths such as overly wicked, foolish, overly righteous, overly wise. Christ is that narrow gate. To fit through the narrowness of that gate You must shed all you have by placing on Christ all your pride all your sin and all the idols of your heart. You must see Him as the only means whereby you can be reconciled to an offended God who made man upright.

But we like sheep have come up with our own schemes we've all gone our own way you must walk through that gate believing on the sufficiency of Christ and Christ alone and you must walk on in His name through though the way may be often difficult though the way may have days of prosperity as well as days of adversity you walk on that difficult way knowing that it is only that narrow and difficult way that leads to eternal life Well may God grant you grace that you may be one plucked from the fire, one among a thousand. Let's pray. Father thank you for your goodness to us. Thank you for your mercies. We ask that you would seal this word upon our hearts and may we find our trust, our rest, and our hope in Christ and Christ alone.

In his name we pray. Amen.