I want to preach and teach tonight on this subject, living life under the sun with a sanctified ear. A sanctified ear. The subject has a lot to do with listening. When you look at verse 21, the Bible says, Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken, lest thou hear thy servant curse thee. for oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others." May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word. Please be seated. Now here's some teaching here. When Solomon begins writing this book inspired of the Holy Spirit, he speaks of... he's writing from a vast, vast history of life experience. And part of that experience was not altogether in the will of God. And he tells about that. He tells about his search for satisfaction and his search for happiness and life's meaning and how he can profit from the experience that he had. He learned a lot of things. There was never anybody in a greater position to observe humanity and to see how life works under the sun in the will of God and how it works, which is not so well outside of the will of God. And there's hardly any aspect of life that's not dealt with here in the book of Ecclesiastes. And these verses that I've read tonight, we find some teaching that is absolutely pertinent to any discussion of a philosophy of life for believers under the sun while we're living here. And it involves the matter of listening. The Bible has a lot to say about speech and about talk and about words, but it also has quite a bit to say about listening. And one aspect in particular is dealt with here, but I want us to look at the counsel here in particular to, number one, when you look at this, the first part of verse 21, There is something is said about our the importance of our exercising moderation where our listening is concerned to exercise moderation when it comes to our listening. And then secondly, in the latter part of that verse talks about the importance of exercising maturity. While we listen, we're all listening to things every day, constantly listening, listening, listening. And so then in the third place, he mentions the matter of our being exercising something else. And that is magnanimity or benevolence or charity or understanding or patience in listening. So let's just look at this step by step and see what God has for us to learn from these two verses on the subject of listening. In the first place, there's some counsel here for us to exercise moderation in our listening. Now, verse 21 says, take no heed unto... and here's the operative word, all. Take no heed unto all the words that are spoken. In other words, there are some words that we could just do without. That day by day by day, things that we hear, things we may read, whatever. So we need, what we'll see in this verse is that we're counseled here to cultivate a selective hearing. Talking about having a sanctified ear. A sanctified ear means that we are God conscious and we want to be sensitive to what we listen to for God's sake. We're not our own. We're bought with a price that includes our whole body and our ears and our faculties of listening and processing what we hear and so on. But we're not to listen to everything. That's why the Bible says here, Solomon says, Take no heed unto all the words that are spoken. Now he'd watch men and women do that. He'd done it himself. And now he's giving us some counsel about that and telling us that one of the best things we can do is cultivate that sanctified ear which is capable of practicing selective hearing and it's talking about the fact that Listening involves a certain discipline on our part. We don't have to listen to everything that comes across our ears. Now, we know that from driving down the road and something will come on the radio, we'll just turn it off. Sometimes we'll be out in company somewhere and we'll be hearing something, we'll get up and move. We'll walk away. So what we're talking about now is is the exercise of some discipline. You have to be disciplined to listen. This is one of the things that pastors think about. It's good to be disciplined to listen. You can't just be letting your mind go. It's easy for us to sit in a church service, for example, and be thinking about everything that we have to do when we get home or what the lineup of the weeks work. and everything else like that all kinds of different things. We have to discipline ourselves in terms of of what we should listen to. We also need to discipline ourselves in terms of what we shouldn't listen to in Proverbs 18 in verse 21. Now here's a here is a key verse why this is so important. Never in my life did I begin to think about how important these matters of speech and the tongue and the ear are, but Proverbs says this in chapter 18 and verse 21, life and death are in the power of the tongue. Now, if life and death may be in the power of a tongue, the tongue, but if a person is deaf, it's not going to mean much, but we're not deaf. If a person doesn't have the capability of listening, it doesn't matter if life and death are in the power of the tongue where they're concerned, because they do not have the capacity to listen, to hear anything. But we do. And so, because life and death are in the power of the tongue, we need to be very careful about what we allow our ears to hear. We have to be very careful about that. I'm telling you, as a pastor now who's pastored for some 40 years, I have seen what happens in churches when people just listen to the wrong people long enough. I've seen really good people go astray. Their attitudes change. Their demeanors change. Everything else. They've been listening to the wrong people too long. So, life and death really are in the power of the tongue. we talk about how people can they talk about people use a verbal abuse as a as a a plea an argument for get wanting a divorce and a lot of times they'll get a divorce on the basis of verbal abuse we we've all known probably most of us many of us have known children that really suffer verbal abuse and and so these these It's so important what we allow our ears to enter our ears. Years ago, I'm going to tell you, how many of you ever heard of earwigs? Anybody ever hear of an earwig? I never heard of them until years ago when I was up in the New England area and I was preaching a revival and the pastor, they had a finished off basement and they put me in a room down there for the whole week, Sunday through Saturday. And anyway, and the place was clean. I mean, it really was. It was a clean house. But during the night, I got the sensation of something dropping on the sheet. And sure enough, it was all of these little tiny, tiny earwigs. Just a little bug. I mean, they're small. I probably wouldn't even be able to see them today without my glasses. But I saw them then. I thought, what in the world? It was like somebody sprinkling a salt shaker after the lights went out. And then, um, but the, so anyway, I'm putting up with this. And finally, after the third day, I decided I was going to say something about it. And I don't know what was worse, the earwigs or when the pastor came in, bless his heart. I mean, I, I'd gone out when I came back in, he was in there and he was pumping. the poison all over that room. I mean, he was spraying them all around the floor, all around the bed, spraying the curtains up on the ceiling. And again, I didn't want to say anything about it, but boy, I choked and I gagged and I thought, I wonder how much of this is settled in my lungs. I had all kinds of nightmarish thoughts about, you know, maybe the earwigs would have been better. But I asked somebody about earwigs. Of course, I asked the asked one of the pastor's kids, they said, these are earwigs. I said, what are earwigs? He said, well, people say that they will crawl into people's ears who are asleep and eat their brains. So I didn't think of this until just now, so that might be some explanation for what you have to put up with sometimes. But anyway, Let me give you, that is what people used to think about earwigs. I want to give you a medical, a writing from a medical journal, for a medical man anyway, in the National History of the Animal Kingdom, published in 1856 by this Dr. William S. Dallas. He said, speaking about earwigs, There is a common belief almost everywhere that the earwig creeps into the ears of persons sleeping in the open air, passes thence into the brain, and causes death. Now, think about that. You say, why in the world do you bring up earwigs? Because this is what words can do. Words can creep into people who are not alert, who are not aware, and do some real serious damage. Because the power of life and death, life and death are in the power of the tongue. The same thing can happen to careless listeners. If we just listen to anything and everything. Sometimes kids think that their parents are just being unreasonable. Because they'll pull them out of a mall where they've got this rocky, jazzy music, or this rap, or this filth. The parents will want to supervise the music that their kids can listen to. And see, here's the thing. I want to tell you what happened to me a while back. I was in a meeting. And afterwards, I think the boy was about 10 years old, and he wanted to talk to me. And so we sat down to talk, and he said, I made a profession of faith when I was eight. But he said, really? He said, I don't even know if there really is a God. And he came from an outstanding Christian family. Now, you'd have to know all of the story here, but anyway, he had doubts about God. It was just obvious that the devil was just bombarding him with some things. And I said, well, I said, I want you to think about this. I said, your mom and your dad, your grandma and your grandpa, your pastor, all these pastors and churches that you're around and have been into. And they all believe in God. They all believe in Jesus and salvation and everything. And here you are, a 10 year old boy. And you're questioning God. I said, I said, what's wrong with that? And, of course, he said, that doesn't make any sense. He said, they're a lot older and wiser than I am, and so on. So we talked more and more and more, and it was just easy to see that the devil had just gotten him disturbed. But now here's my point. When parents are trying to protect, or a spiritual leader, a pastor, or so on, caution people about what they listen to It would be better for children to listen to their parents. On that score. Because these are very serious things which you listen to. Here are two verses in the book of Ecclesiastes is talking about how to live life under the sun and it's dealing with basically one aspect in particular of listening. But in this we see how important it is. Let me just say two things. About this matter of exercising moderation in what we listen to. Two things. The first one is there's a counsel right here in the matter of practicing moderation in what we listen to. We're counseled against being indiscriminate in what we listen to. In other words, we'll just listen to anything. If we're there and it's on, I'll listen to it. If somebody wants to come up and start spewing gossip and pouring battery acid, so to speak, in my ear verbally, I'll just listen to that. I don't want to be impolite. I don't want to appear rude. So I'll just listen and let all of this junk be funneled into my ear. The Bible is very clear here in telling us that we need to not be indiscriminate. about what we listen to. The Scripture teaches, does it not? That it's wise not to talk too much. Most of us have gotten lessons about that in life. I have. The Bible says a lot about the folly of talking too much. Proverbs 21 and 23 says, Whosoever keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles. Ecclesiastes 3 and verse 7, we've already been there, says there's a time to keep silence and a time to speak. Ecclesiastes 5 and 2, let thy words be few. Titus 1 and 10 says there are many unruly and vain talkers. So it's very, very wise not to talk too much. But what our text is saying tonight is it's also very wise not to listen too much. Amen. Now, talking too much can lead to a person's downfall. And listening to too much stuff has led to a lot of people's downfall. John Bunyan's most famous book, The Pilgrim's Progress, The sequel to that is a book called The Holy War. I know many of you have read both of those books. But in The Holy War, it revolves around the city of Mansoul, which is basically a type of the Christian heart. And it says that the city of Mansoul, he says, had five gates through which Satan could enter, gain access to Mansoul or to our hearts. And here's the gates. In that allegory, the Holy War, he mentions the eye gate, the ear gate, the nose gate, the mouth gate, and the field gate. The two main ones were the eye gate and the ear gate. This is the way that the devil can get most access into our hearts. That's why the Bible says, keep your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. The devil will attack our heart primarily through what we look at and through what we listen to. So we need to protect our ear gate against things like, and I'll name some of them, we need to protect our ear gate against gossip, against lies, against rumor, against profanity, against innuendo, against sarcasm, against cynicism, against things like foolish talking and what is known as trash talk. We need to protect, as Christian people, our ear gate from listening to that sort of thing and try to let most of what comes into our ear gate, as Christians we need to try to Let most of what comes into our ear gate be characterized as speech that is with grace, Colossians 3 and 6, seasoned with salt. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt. So we want gracious things coming into our ear gate. And that which is characterized as salt, Now, the psalmist said that he wanted to guard two things. Right off the bat, in Psalm 1, verse 1, the psalmist said that he wanted to guard his ear gate. Because he said that he was not going to listen to, he says, a godly person will not listen to the counsel of the ungodly or to the scornful. See, a person can be a Christian and be scornful. They can have spells of being scornful. They scoff and they mock and they are scornful about things. The psalmist said, I'm not going to listen either to the counsel of the ungodly or to the scornful. Now, the airwaves are full of this kind of thing. television and radio and and so on. So he mentioned that in Psalm 101 verse 3 said he mentioned his eye gate. He mentions these two gates, the ear gate, the eye gate. Psalm 101, he said, I will set no wicked thing before my eyes. So he is really focusing upon the need of of protecting the eye gate and the ear gate. So We're told here to be very careful not to be indiscriminate in what we listen to. About what we listen to. And let me just toss this in the center here. Along with this, and I'll say more about this in a minute, we don't need to be people who are too inquisitive. Now, it's good to ask questions, but what I'm talking about now is going to come along in just a minute. Just remember this statement. It's good not to be too inquisitive. How many of you have ever heard or have ever said, in one way or another, inquired, what does so-and-so think about me? I wonder what they think about me. I wonder what people have said about me. I wonder what they're saying about me. Well, what did they say about me? We want to be careful about that, because most of the time when we ask a question like that, we'll get an answer. And not all of the time is it going to be an answer that we really like getting. So we need to be careful about that. More about that in a minute. But we need to be very careful not to be indiscriminate about what we listen to. And we're counseled here to apply some spiritual insightfulness In other words, discernment when it comes to what we listen to or what we find ourselves listening to. We need to be very discerning. Job 12 and verse 11 says, Doth not the ear try words as the mouth and the mouth taste meat? Now doesn't that make sense? It says the ear should try or taste words just like your mouth tastes meat. You get something in your mouth that you don't like, you're going to spit it out. You're going to say, there's something wrong with this. This tastes like it's tainted. This tastes like it's soured. This doesn't taste good. Something's wrong with this. And you push it aside. Well, the Bible says that the ear should try words like that. They're just not palatable. certain things that come into come into our ears. I want to read you Matthew Henry's comment on that verse in Job 12 and 11, because it's really good. Doth not the ear try words and or as the mouth tastes meat? Henry said the mind of man has as good a faculty of discerning between truth and error when duly stated as the palate has of discerning between what is sweet and what is bitter. Job, therefore, demands from his friends a liberty to judge for himself of what they had said and desires them to use the same liberty in judging what he'd said. The ear must try words before it receives them so as to subscribe to them. In other words, you've got to pay attention, be discerning, with your ear what you're listening to before you just subscribe or accept them. He says, as by the taste we judge what food is wholesome to the body and what is not, so by the spirit of discerning we must judge what doctrine or teaching is sound and savory and wholesome and what isn't. In 1 Corinthians 10 and 15, Paul said, I speak as to wise men. This is what he said to wise men. Judge ye what I say. Now that's something that we need to do in life. People bring up the Bereans. Weren't the Bereans wonderful? They searched the Scriptures to see if these things were so that Paul had been preaching. And that was very commendable. And that's what we all should do. But not just not just in the church setting. We need to. Be discerning and insightful about what is coming across our ears. And be very, very careful about what we let in into into our ears so. When Paul said, I speak as the wise men judge ye what I say. Our ears should try words, but we don't always do that. But Solomon is saying, as you live life under the sun, if you're going to live a victorious life as a child of God, then you've got to be careful that you don't take heed unto all words that are spoken. Then he said this. Let me be very, very plain. There are just some words, some things that are said out there, that are sung out there, that have been written that Christians just need to push it away from them. Amen. You know, we have short lives, all of us. And I know that there are some things we have to be educated, we have to understand some things, we have to know what is going on. in what the, for example, the people who are in error on different things, where they're coming from. But here's where Christians get in a lot of trouble. They spend too much time on that and not enough time on listening to truth and getting truth. Now, it's an old, old illustration, but it's a good one. The way that bank tellers learn to recognize counterfeit bills is not by sitting in the back room for two or three weeks before they go on the job studying counterfeit bills. It's by becoming so familiar with the real thing that they can spot a counterfeit. And so we need to be people who are just rejecting a lot of this stuff and redeeming the time and filling our hearts with truth. alright, be not, he says, take no heed unto all words that are spoken. Then he gives some counsel here concerning maturity. Now look what he says, because he's really dealing with all of this. I wanted to get a little general on that, but here's what he says. He says, lest thou hear thy servant curse thee. Now if you're going to pick up the habit of being an eavesdropper, by and by, you're going to hear something you wish you hadn't heard. Amen. So he says. Don't give heed to everything. That you hear because you may hear your servant curse the. Sometimes that happens. You don't want it to happen. I was reading something other day. The famous preacher JM Darby from back in the mid 1800s in England. And Darby said he'd had, he had taught lots and lots and lots of young preachers. And he said, he just made this statement in one of his memoirs. He said, it's so strange to me that all my pets have become rascals. Well, I hope he was exaggerating that a little bit, but sometimes, you know, he probably would heard one of the people that he had done the most for saying something derogatory about him. And Solomon had certainly done this. And it happens all the time. I mean, people just hear something being said about them. They can't believe that person. They have no idea they felt that way. So the Bible is saying, don't give heed. Don't spend a lot of time on everything that everybody says and be inquisitive about everything that's being said. What are they saying about me? What have they said about me? Because you may not. You may be real disappointed in what you hear, so he said, lest I hear thy servant curse me. Spiritually mature people. Are going to expect some disappointment? Relative to their listening. Amen? You ever listened to anything? You were disappointed in what you heard? Spiritually mature people are not bowled over when they're standing outside the door and they hear somebody. Somebody told me a good while back. I was in another church and he said, I was out in the corridor with another church member. We were out there cleaning in the church corridor. It wasn't here. It was way off. He said, I heard the pastor talking to another staff member, and I won't even repeat what they said. It wasn't a curse word, but it was full of bigotry, gross bigotry. And it just broke this person's prejudice, racial prejudice. It broke their heart. And this person happened to be working on a bus ministry, had worked on a bus ministry for years. And when they heard how that this person really thought about the bus ministry and those who worked on it. It just broke their heart. Now, Job 19 and verse 2, Job is saying to his friends, his friends now, he says, how long will you vex my soul and break me in pieces with your words? Now, why do we need to hear this tonight? Because we're living here under the sun. As long as we're here under the sun, we're going to get disappointed by things that people say from time to time. And if we're mature, we're not going to be blown out of the water by that. People's words can break us in pieces if we let them. Somebody said, sticks and stones. I remember my mother saying to me, When I was real little, sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never harm you. She had no idea. Words were hurting, really hurting. I would rather have had somebody punch me as a little kid than have had those things said out on the playground or wherever. So, words can hurt more than sticks and stones if we let them. And it doesn't matter how old you are, whether you're a little child or you're an adult, long in years, you've got to be mature enough when you hear somebody saying something that is a big disappointment to you, not to let it blow you out of the water. Because we're still here under the sun. We're still here in a sin-cursed world where people are not perfect. In fact, if you'll just refer back to verse 20, the Bible says there is not a just man upon earth. That's it, this is a just man. And the Bible says there's not a just man on earth that doeth good and sinneth not perfectly. So, you know, how many people have left churches or broken friendships or ran and hid in a cave, so to speak, and I just don't want to get hurt anymore. I mean, you wouldn't believe how many people I've had tell me on visitation things. I used to go to church and something happened or this happened. I was burned. I was hurt. And I just don't want to get hurt anymore. What kind of Christianity is that? What if Jesus had said somewhere along the line, I just don't want to get hurt anymore. We're in a sin-cursed world. And these things are going to happen. Here's two great verses preparing us, giving us the right outlook on this. We have to listen with mature ears. Matthew Henry said this, he said, the good names of the greatest people lie much at the mercy even of the meanest. The good names. We live in a day when somebody can get a burr under their saddle. and put some things up on the internet that will never be taken off as long as they live. You're just at the mercy of people's words if we let ourselves be victimized by them. Now, so we have to be mature enough to remember that. And here's something else this maturity involves in listening. Maturity, a mature sanctified ear, is going to be one that realizes that people don't always mean what they say. You're standing on the other side of a door and you hear somebody say the meanest or hurtful thing about you. Aren't we mature enough to know that people don't always mean what they say? They don't always mean it. Be mature enough to know that people often change their minds about what they said. Amen. That's what a sanctified ear does. It realizes that as it's listening. It listens with some disappointment and yet with this discernment. Spiritual mature people, secondly, are able to dismiss a lot of what they hear. Amen. Beloved, this doesn't get any simpler than this. As Christian people, the more mature we get, the easier it will be for us just to dismiss a lot of things that we hear. And it's better, the Bible says, love thinketh no evil. It's better to just think. They really don't mean that. They'll change their mind about that someday. Now, turn to Psalm 38. And if there's anybody in the Old Testament that really experienced some bad things said about him by enemies and by friends, disappointing things that were said, it was David. But in Psalm 38, verse 13, Here was his response to it. He said, but I, verse 13, but I as a deaf man heard not. Well, just go before that and you get the gist of this. He said, and they that seek my hurt speak mischievous things and imagine deceits all the day long. Just making stuff up, making stuff up. But he said, but I as a deaf man heard not. And I was as a dumb man that opens not his mouth. Thus I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs." In other words, he just dismissed it. Now, so there's counsel here for us to exercise moderation. We don't have to listen to everything. We shouldn't listen to everything. We should walk away, turn it off, whatever. And we need to exercise maturity in our listening. And here's the last thing. Look at verse 22. He said, for often times also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise have cursed others. How about that? Magnanimity. Based on what? We've done the same thing. Maybe not all of us, but most of us in one degree or another. He's saying here in this passage, "...take no heed unto all words that are spoken, lest thou hear thy servant curse thee. For oftentimes also by an own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others." So people that run around with a chip on their shoulder, a thin skin and all that need to rethink their position. when they get all upset and all uptight, bent out of shape, blown out of the water, knocked out of the saddle because of something that they hear. There's counsel here to exercise magnanimity, which means to be charitable, have a charitable ear, a forgiving ear, an understanding ear. Some honesty and some humility has to be brought into play when we listen to the unkind, inappropriate words of other people. Here's a New Testament verse parallels this one here in Ecclesiastes. Therefore, thou art inexcusable, old man, whosoever thou art that judges for wherein thou just judges another, thou condemnest thyself for thou that judges doest the same things. Now, that's not always true, but sometimes it is true. In Matthew seven and three, Jesus said, Why beholdest thou the moat that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? So here's an admonition to cultivate, just cultivate a charitable ear. A sanctified ear is a charitable, magnanimous ear. Alright? I'll close with this. Two thoughts under this idea of Having a charitable listening. That's not good what they said. That's so wrong. That's so bad. That's so unfair. That's so hateful. And yet, we need to be charitable in that. In listening and not just fly into a fury over it. Charitable listening, number one, will make us consider the times that we've been ourselves remiss. in regard to things that we may have said about other people. You know, there's a place in the Bible that talks about an ox being gored. It all depends on whose ox is being gored. And sometimes people get so upset over something somebody said about them, they've done the same thing to others again and again and again. So, terrible listening makes us consider the times that we've been remiss in regard to things that we've said about others. In James 3 and 2, there's very few people that are perfect in this area, that never say a bad thing about anybody else. Now, I say very few because I have known some, and known them a long time. And never heard him say one, not one bad thing, not even a suggestion, not even anything could be interpreted as bad about somebody else. Not that there wasn't plenty to say, but they just chose not to say it. In James 3 and 2, and it's hard, it's hard to be a person like that. I heard somebody, I'm going to make this quick because I'm in there, I promise I am. I heard somebody say something not too long ago. They said, referring to somebody, and they said that, a word like knucklehead, not even as strong as knucklehead. But when I heard them say it, and they weren't being mean or vicious, but they just used that term. They were a little frustrated. When I heard them say it, I burst out laughing, laughed out loud. And it was one of those things that when I thought about it a few minutes later and I laughed out loud again and I kept laughing. Then an hour later I heard it. The next morning I thought about it. And I burst out laughing loud again. Just laugh, laugh, laugh. I almost want to laugh now when I think about it. Them saying that. Here's why it was so funny. It was so shockingly funny. For that person to say anything even that mild derogatory about anybody, it just cracked me up. It was so unlike them to do it. My wife's brother that's in heaven now, he and I have had totally different backgrounds. I mean, I had a rough background. He was brought up in a pastor's home, and he was a good Christian, Kenny Gibson. I hadn't been saved in a couple of years. We were down here in Valley Park that used to be called the Dodge City of St. Louis County because it was so rough. And I mean rowdy ruffians there that people still remember their names to this day. So me and my brother-in-law were sitting at a, I think it was the only four-way stop back then, in front of the drugstore. And this crowd of ruffians, some of them were in a car, packed into a car and they turned Turned around, or they pulled up alongside, and one of them said something, hollered out the window. It was really rough, bad, and I'll beat you and a bunch of other adjectives and so on to my brother-in-law. And so I'm sitting there, and I'm waiting. What kind of reaction is this going to get? And here's what my brother-in-law said. He was in his 20s, married. He looked over and he said, I mean, this was strong. He looked over and he said, you and whose army? And that was so childlike to me. But this is what we want to be this kind of people that are just charitable in the things that we hear. Because we've been so remiss ourselves. In many things, James said, we offend all. And he says, if any man offend not in word, this will salve some of us' conscience like mine needs salving. In many things we offend all, the Bible says. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man. I'm far from being perfect, but I've known many people who are close to being perfect, and I'm trying to be more and more perfect in that area. So charitable listening will make us consider the times that we've been remiss ourselves. It will also make us consider the times that we've lived to regret things we've said about others. We'll remember times we've been remiss, and we'll remember how much we regretted it when we said things we shouldn't have said to others. I'm not trying to use myself as an illustration tonight, but when I was preaching a revival up in Michigan, this young man there, he was He was, oh, in his teens when I went up there to the church, and years went by and worked on the buses, and real good, worked in junior church, sat with the kids in service. I'm only in my early 30s. One time we were in a, had a morning worship. The place was just packed. And this young man was sitting there, and he had two little bus kids with him, and they were going back and forth at each other. Well, they weren't that little. I said to him, I called his first name, and I said, if you can't control those boys, I'll come down there and control them for you. My heart was smitten right then when I said that. I apologized for it. And about 25 years later when I went up there, he came over for the homecoming and I found him and I apologized to him again. All of those years, some people say, what a little thing. He said, oh, I didn't give it another thought. I gave it another thought for 25 years and regretted that I ever said that. So when we're listening to other people and they say mean, hateful, inappropriate, unfair, nasty, mean-spirited things, we should, out of charity, magnum, magnanimity, whatever, you know what I'm trying to say. We should have mercy on them and feel bad because they're going to live to regret the things that they said. Let's all stand together.