The Tightrope of True Righteousness Text: Ecclesiastes 7:15-18
Introduction: Life in the Vapor
The book of Ecclesiastes is a divine sanity check for the people of God. It is written for those who live in the real world, a world that is often baffling, frequently unjust, and always shot through with what the Preacher calls "vanity." This vanity, this hebel, is not philosophical meaninglessness. It is not the black despair of the nihilist. Rather, it is the perplexing, often frustrating reality of life "under the sun." It is the smoke, the vapor, the chasing after the wind. It is the experience of seeing the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer. It is the maddening sense that the deck is stacked in a way you cannot quite figure out.
Our modern world, particularly the secular part of it, thinks it can solve this problem by simply denying the categories. They see a righteous man perish and say, "Well, there is no ultimate righteousness." They see a wicked man live long and say, "There is no ultimate wickedness." They try to flatten the world and drain it of all moral significance. But this is a fool's errand. You cannot live that way. You cannot raise your children that way. You cannot run a society that way. Every fiber of our being, placed there by our Creator, cries out that some things are good and some things are evil, that justice ought to prevail, and that life should make sense.
The Preacher does not deny the problem; he leans into it. He looks the apparent absurdity of life squarely in the face. He does not offer us cheap grace or sentimental platitudes. He gives us hard-won, rugged wisdom for navigating a fallen world. And in our text today, he gives us one of the most frequently misunderstood and misapplied passages in all of Scripture. He warns us against being "excessively righteous" and "excessively wicked." To the modern ear, this sounds like a call for milquetoast moderation, a bland, spiritual beige. It sounds like, "Don't be too good, don't be too bad, just try to be a decent chap." But that is not it at all. This is not a call to be lukewarm. This is a call to walk a tightrope, with the fear of God as your balancing pole, over a chasm of deadly moral extremes.
The Text
I have seen everything during my days of vanity; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. Do not be excessively righteous, and do not be overly wise. Why should you make yourself desolate? Do not be excessively wicked, and do not be a simpleminded fool. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you seize one thing and also not let go of the other; for the one who fears God comes forth with both of them.
(Ecclesiastes 7:15-18 Legacy Standard Bible)
The Maddening Observation (v. 15)
The Preacher begins with a raw, honest observation from his own experience living in this vaporous world.
"I have seen everything during my days of vanity; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing." (Ecclesiastes 7:15)
This is the problem that launches a thousand bad theologies. This is the verse that keeps the atheists in business. We are wired for justice. We believe, and the book of Proverbs largely teaches, that righteousness leads to life and wickedness leads to death. And yet, we all see what Solomon saw. We see the godly woman, faithful to her husband and her church, die of cancer in her forties. We see the corrupt politician, the swindler, the godless tyrant, live to a ripe old age, enjoying his ill-gotten gains. This is not an exception; it is a common feature of life under the sun.
The immature believer is rocked by this. He thinks God has somehow failed, that the system is broken. The secularist concludes there is no system at all. But the Preacher simply states it as a fact. He does not flinch. He is not having a crisis of faith. He is describing the landscape. Why does God allow this? The short answer is that we are not told all the specifics in every case. This is part of the vanity, the inscrutable wisdom of a sovereign God who gives and takes away. His purposes are high and we are low. To demand a full explanation for every apparent injustice is to climb into the judgment seat yourself. It is to forget that you are the creature and He is the Creator.
This verse is here to test us. Will we trust God's character even when we cannot trace His hand? Will we affirm His goodness when our circumstances scream that He is unfair? The righteous man who perishes in his righteousness is not a cosmic accident. He is in the hands of a loving Father. The wicked man who prolongs his life is not getting away with anything. He is simply fattening himself for the day of slaughter, storing up wrath for the day of wrath. What we see is not the whole story. This life is but the first page of a very long book.
The Ditch of Self-Righteousness (v. 16)
Now, in response to this perplexing reality, the Preacher gives his first warning. And it is a startling one.
"Do not be excessively righteous, and do not be overly wise. Why should you make yourself desolate?" (Ecclesiastes 7:16)
Let us be clear about what this is not saying. It is not saying, "Don't try so hard to be holy." It is not a prohibition against genuine, Spirit-wrought righteousness. You cannot be "too" Christ-like. You cannot be "too" holy as God is holy. The Bible is full of commands to pursue righteousness with all your might. So what is this "excessive" righteousness?
This is self-righteousness. This is the righteousness of the Pharisees. It is a righteousness that is manufactured, for show, designed to impress men and manipulate God. The "excessively righteous" man is the one who is keeping a meticulous scorecard of his own virtues. He is the doctrinally-correct, know-it-all Christian. He is the pursed-lips, sanctimonious Christian. He is the man who has his quiet time every day, not out of love for God, but because he thinks it keeps the cosmic vending machine of blessings stocked in his favor.
This kind of righteousness is a dead end. It is a brittle, arrogant, and joyless thing. And notice the result: "Why should you make yourself desolate?" The self-righteous man is a lonely man. He isolates himself from others because he is constantly judging them. And he isolates himself from God, because he is not coming to God for grace, but is coming with his resume in hand. He is not submitting to the righteousness of God that comes by faith; he is trying to establish his own. And that is the surest path to desolation, to a spiritual wasteland of pride and despair. The same goes for being "overly wise." This is the man who thinks he has God all figured out, who has a tidy systematic theology that explains every mystery of providence. He is not wise; he is a conceited fool, and his folly will also leave him desolate when life inevitably presents him with a problem his little system cannot solve.
The Ditch of Reckless Wickedness (v. 17)
Having warned against the ditch on the right side of the road, he now warns against the ditch on the left.
"Do not be excessively wicked, and do not be a simpleminded fool. Why should you die before your time?" (Ecclesiastes 7:17)
Again, this is not a license for moderate wickedness. The Preacher is not saying, "A little bit of sin is fine, just don't go overboard." The Bible's standard is perfection. The warning here is intensely practical. The first warning was against a spiritual, internal self-destruction. This warning is against a physical, external self-destruction.
The "excessively wicked" man is the one who throws all caution to the wind. He is the fool who says in his heart there is no God and then lives like it. He drinks and drives. He sleeps around. He gets into bar fights. He runs with criminals. He lives a life of high-handed, reckless rebellion. And what is the result? "Why should you die before your time?"
God has appointed a time for every man to die. But it is possible, through foolish and wicked living, to punch your own ticket early. This is just common sense. A life of debauchery, violence, and foolishness will often lead to a premature grave. This is not a theological puzzle; it is a statement of fact. God has built certain consequences into the fabric of the world. If you jump off a cliff, you will fall. If you live a life of excessive wickedness, you are inviting disaster. This is a mercy. It is a practical, fatherly warning to the simpleminded fool: stop it. You are destroying yourself.
The Balancing Pole of God's Fear (v. 18)
So, we have two ditches: the desolation of self-righteousness and the premature death of reckless wickedness. How do we stay on the road? The Preacher gives us the answer.
"It is good that you seize one thing and also not let go of the other; for the one who fears God comes forth with both of them." (Ecclesiastes 7:18)
What are the "one thing" and "the other"? He is referring back to the two warnings. You are to "seize" the warning against self-righteousness and "not let go" of the warning against reckless wickedness. You must hold both truths in your mind at the same time. You must be zealous for true righteousness while hating the very scent of self-righteousness. You must flee from wickedness while understanding that your standing before God is not based on your performance but on His grace.
And what is the key that makes this possible? What is the balancing pole that allows a man to walk this tightrope? It is the fear of God. "For the one who fears God comes forth with both of them." The fear of God is the central theme of Ecclesiastes. It is the beginning of wisdom. It is the can opener that allows you to enjoy the cans of peaches that God gives you in this life. Without it, you are left with sealed cans of blessing that only mock you.
The man who fears God understands that God is holy and sovereign, and so he will not trifle with sin. He flees from wickedness. But the man who fears God also understands that God is gracious and merciful, and that all our righteousness is as filthy rags. And so he flees from self-righteousness, clinging only to the mercy of God. The fear of God produces both a hatred of sin and a profound humility. It keeps you from the high-minded arrogance of the Pharisee and the low-minded foolishness of the profligate. It is the only way to navigate the vanity of this life without falling into desolation or an early grave. It is the only way to live in the real world, with all its perplexing injustices, and not lose your mind, or your soul.