I have 10.5 to 20 here and if you'll turn over with me. This is a message kind of continuing on from the message last week. It's about how we can have success in an uncertain world. Keys to success in an uncertain world. Now what we learned last week is about the uncertainty of the world that we live in. And in chapter 9, verse 11, all the way through chapter 10, verse 4, we learn about the uncertainty of this world. And you don't know how things are going to turn out. You know, that night for the election is a good illustration. Nobody knew what was going to happen. You know, by the way, when the news media called Florida for Gore, they knew what they were doing. It's not that they didn't, you know, they had an objective in doing that because they wanted to dissuade people from voting. Oh, yeah, you bet, man. you know because there are a lot of people on the west coast when they heard that they said forget it man if they lost florida then you know and that's why you know when they keep getting hammered about it they just say oh well no it was just a mistake now we live in an uncertain world and uh no one uh no one knows what's going to happen now we learned about four keys last week for how we can deal with an uncertain world see what happens is this when things don't go the way that people want if people don't have a proper understanding of God, and if they don't have a proper understanding of the messed up world that we live in, it really, really frustrates a lot of people, especially if you listen to any of these talk shows. And I don't like listening to these things, but I have been for about the past three weeks. And when I listen to it, my blood starts to boil. And, you know, some people get very upset, and I understand why. But think about if you looked at this whole election thing going on right now, and you didn't understand that there's a sovereign God. If you didn't know that God was sovereign over this whole mess, and you thought that somehow it was our job to control it, or if we didn't control it, you know, that it was our failure, that'd be a very frustrating thing, you know? And so that is what really drives a lot of people to extreme frustration is they think, ah, man, things are falling apart. I've got to do something. Like today, I got another phone call from somebody wanting to raise money for legislation to stop partial birth abortion. And, you know, You know, I'm totally opposed to it and I've given money to those things before, but you know, every time you did, then, you know, the Clinton twice, he vetoed the bills that would have outlawed partial birth abortion. This guy on the phone, he said, he told me, I thought it was kind of interesting. He said, he said it was only about three or four weeks ago that he learned about partial birth abortion. And he's making phone calls to try to raise money to, you know, do legislation to put a stop to it. But that's kind of interesting, you know, that people they don't they don't know what's going on. And, you know, now this individual, he's, you know, raising money to try to stop it. That's good. I'm not faulting him. I told him, you know, right now is not the time my checkbook doesn't have money to go to that particular cause right now, because it's being used for other things. But you see, when people look at these kinds of things, like, like, you know, government evils and all kinds of other things. And if they don't know that there's a sovereign God, they get very frustrated and they basically can't handle it. And that's also true with other areas of life. It might be your job. It might be your family situation. People who don't understand the messed up world we live in and they see the chaos and they see the confusion and they see the uncertainty. If they don't understand that there's a sovereign God, then they have problems. Solomon gives us eight keys in chapters 9 and 10, eight keys for how we can have success in this uncertain world. Last week, we learned about four of them, namely in verses 11 and 12 of chapter 9. Solomon said the first key to success in an uncertain world is that we need to understand the precarious nature of wisdom. It is very, very uncertain. And he says in chapter 9, verse 11, he said, hey, the race is not to the swift. You would always think that the fast guy is going to win. Not necessarily so. You'd always think that the battle is going to go to the powerful warrior. Not necessarily so. And what he does in verses 11 and 12, he says, don't count on things being the way that you think they might be. A second key to success, he says, is in verses 13 to 17. He says we need to have a proper perspective on the nature of wisdom. And what he says in verses 13 to 17 is that wisdom sometimes is more powerful than even something like power. and might and weapons of war. And he talks about this man who delivers a city. A poor man, yet a wise man in verses 13-17. Now the thing that is very ironic in this whole story, Solomon says, is that even though this poor yet wise man saved the city from an enemy attack, nobody even cared to recognize him because he was a poor man. And they basically blew him off because he was a nobody. Wisdom is very valuable, but don't count on having great praise if you do something good. It's not necessarily going to happen. In verses 18 and following, he shows us the limitations of wisdom. He says in verse 18, wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner can destroy much good. You can have a great system, But guess what? Get the wrong person in charge, and you can have a big mess. Chapter 10, verse 1, he says it's like very fine perfumer's oil. Hey, come on in, buddy. What's he doing? Hey, what are you doing? Oh, OK. All right. So, you know, it's like, it's like, you know, very, very valuable perfume or oil and, you know, get a dead fly in that perfume and it's going to mess the whole thing up. All it takes is one little bit. You see how delicate wisdom is? You can have things really, really good and yet it can be ruined by some foolishness. Now, a fourth key to success, he says in verses 2 to 4, chapter 10, is this. He says, but don't forget about the value of wisdom. And he says in verses 2 to 4 that no matter what, he says, you're better off to try to live wisely than to be foolishly. Well, tonight we're going to look at four more keys for finding success. And again, listen, here's what I want you to think about. You're not going to solve all of the evils of this world. You and I are not going to make the problems go away. But what you can do is you can learn how to get through life. You know, I'm mentioning earlier about somebody who's all shook up because of personal problems. You can't do that. You know, you can't let a few personal problems throw you off track. So, Solomon gives us here four more keys to success, and this fifth key to success is in chapter 10, verses 5 to 7, where Solomon says, There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, like an error which goes forth from the ruler. Folly is set in many exalted places, while rich men sit in humble places. I have seen slaves riding on horses and princes walking like slaves on the land. Solomon says that a fifth key to success is this, that we need to understand the place of power and the fact that power oftentimes is misused, and the results of misused power is disaster to those who are affected by it. Power oftentimes is misused, and we have to understand that. And Solomon calls it in verse 5, an evil under the sun. does this a number of times in this book. Heather, Tab, come up here and sit down, please. Come on. All of you. He talks about these evils that he sees. If you go back to chapter two, for example, and you look at chapter two in verse twenty one, he talks about things that he has seen. Where are we here? I said chapter two, verse twenty one. Well, it wasn't quite the verse I wanted right there. chapter 5, verse 13, for example, he says, there is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun. He talks about things that he observed as the king, and he sees things that are very foolish. And in particular, right here, when you come back to chapter 10 and verse 5, he's talking about bad leadership in a nation, bad leadership in a nation. Now, I know that because we live in an enlightened society, you and I do, right? We have intelligent people, they're educated. We have a democratic society where the will of the people is what prevails. And because we live in such an enlightened democratic society, we never have a problem with bad leaders, right? Never. Do we have a problem with bad leaders? No, of course we do because we live in a sinful world. What Solomon is addressing right here, though, notice what he says. He says it is errors which goes forth from the ruler or errors which go forth from the sultan is that the ruler is the sultan, the one in power, absolute power. Listen. It's bad enough that you have people in leadership that twist things and oppress. Now, Solomon is not exactly addressing that kind of a problem right here. Hey, girls, you split up. Come on. All of you, come on. We have. a situation where leaders don't necessarily blow it because they have, you know, just outright tried to do things that are illegal. You have it happen. Sometimes you have people doing things, you know, extortion, bribery, things that are just downright illegal. But a lot of times you have things happen that are just plain stupid. And it's not even necessarily something that is, let's say, against the laws of the land or a crime, but it's just plain bad leadership. It's plain stupid. And this is what he's dealing with here. Actually, the word error that he talks about here is something that is not necessarily a willful crime. It's not necessarily willful crime. Walter Kaiser says, such an error gives evidence that not everything that rulers do is always perfect and fair. This blot on the record of human governments is another one of those enigmas in the divine plan. Why does God allow things like that to happen? OK, here's kind of what he's saying. The whole thing is that wisdom is very fragile and one bad leader in a position of power can do great harm. Now, in verses six or seven, he talks about things that happen when you have bad leadership. Look what he says down here in verse 6. He says, There's just something wrong when you have an idiot put in a position of power And by the way, the issue right here, when Solomon talks about, it's a horrible thing when poor people get to rule the land and rich people are not in power. Solomon is not saying that rich people are the answer. Okay. He already showed us that earlier in the book. If you come to chapter nine, if you look in verse 13, he talked about this poor wise man that saved the city. So the issue is not about having money or not having money and that rich people are better, but what he's saying is this. As a general rule of life, who are the people that are best at leading? It's the people who demonstrate by their life that they can make good decisions. And if you look at a person that's living a foolish life, and they're in the gutter because they're living a foolish life, what you do is you say, you know what, I don't want that person in charge of the store, because they are not demonstrating, you know, good leadership. And by the way, the Bible says that, hey, Timothy, Stephan, you can just come up here to the front. The Bible says that when you look at the church and you look at people that you put in leadership of a church and that you recognize, you don't take people who are able to make wise decisions. And this is what Solomon is saying. When fools get into power because of flaws in the process, then you have a real problem. It's a horrible result. As a matter of fact, in Proverbs chapter 30 and verse 21, listen to what he says. He says, Under three things the earth quakes. You want to know three things that the earth shakes under? He says, under for it cannot bear up. The first thing he says is when a slave becomes a king. Why are you going to let a slave become a king when the guy doesn't know anything about handling management? The guy doesn't know anything about, you know, appointing and managing and directing. And he says, oh, talk about a horrible mess. It's when people who don't know what they're doing get in power. This is what he's saying in verse 6. He says, folly is set in exalted places while rich people sit in humble places. Solomon says, this is a horrible thing when this kind of thing happens. When rich people are basically deposed and the poor people, the fool is put in a place of power. Now, again, this does not mean Solomon is not saying that rich people are good and poor people are bad and that you have some kind of a, how do you say it? Case system or caste. past c a a a a a a a I'll tell you this, though. I think I'd rather have somebody that loves Jesus Christ to be present than somebody that hates Jesus Christ, no matter how bad that person was at knowing the Constitution, or no matter how bad that person was at issues of politics. I'd rather have a person that loves what is good, because at least when it comes to making big decisions, they'll have a grid to make decisions by, you know? You wouldn't have people that make it legal to kill babies and who make it illegal to sanction and promote and protect evil kinds of living, you'd have people that can at least make a good decision in those things, you know? Okay, but in any case, what you have is this, is that people who don't have any kind of skill should not be put in positions of leadership. Verse 7, He says, I have seen slaves riding on horses and princes walking like slaves on the land. Of course, this is backwards because typically you'd expect the person with some kind of power and authority and the person that has wealth to be the one riding the horse and the slave would be the one walking. The bottom line is this, Solomon says, woe to the land and woe to the people when godless fools come into power. You follow what I'm saying? Woe to the people. Woe to the land when you have godless fools that are in control of your nation. You know what I saw today, and if you heard it or saw it in the paper, do you know what they had in today's paper about what the Los Angeles City Council has decided to do in their infinite wisdom? The Los Angeles City Council, this article says, has decided to cut ties with the Boy Scouts of America. And it says, the future of LAPD's popular Explorer program is in doubt as city officials decided Tuesday to cut ties with the Boy Scouts of America, which administers the program. The L.A. City Council unanimously approved Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg's plan, recommending that the police department eliminate its Explorer program. Now, how many of you know who Jackie Goldberg is? Show me just if you know who she is. Jackie Goldberg is a radical lesbian feminist. And she is one of the people who has control in Los Angeles politics. and you know she's she's very very radical and she's very outspoken on these issues and so what we have here is we have a person who now has a voice and with her influence now you have a law or some kind of ruling that is going to remove from the city the Boy Scouts of America. Now you know I don't know how long the Boy Scouts have been around but they have been having these Explorer programs and what the Explorer program is is where the scouts will actually go in and they will participate with law enforcement activities and city activities. So it's kind of like a discipleship program using the city and the city takes boy scouts and they bring them in. And, of course, the whole thing that is leading up to this, that led up to this, is because the Boy Scouts said, we demand that people, if they want to be a Boy Scout, they give an oath to God and an oath to their country. They give an oath to God that they believe in God and that they will be morally straight. That's what kind of lives they will lead. Morally pure lives. And, of course, back in New Jersey, I think it was, somebody tried to sue the Boy Scouts and say, well, we don't We don't agree with that. We don't think that you should have to make this kind of an oath. And we don't think that it's wrong if you're homosexual. We think that they should be able to serve as scouts and be in scouting, even though you live a sinful life. And so the Supreme Court signed it with the Boy Scouts, and the Supreme Court gave a victory to the Boy Scouts. But guess what? You have all kinds of states and cities around the country now through the influence of the homosexual agenda that are pulling away and stopping supporting Boy Scouts. Now, the Boy Scouts haven't changed anything in 35 years and 50 years of Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts haven't changed anything. They've been doing the same thing for the past 50 years in terms of helping people. But now what you have... See, what I'm getting to is this. When you have fools, godless fools, and yes, These people are godless fools. I can't comment on their IQ, but they're godless fools because God says that people who live this kind of life and think this way are godless fools. When you have godless fools that get in power, this is what you have happen to your nation, to your state, to your city. And so, this is the kind of thing that Solomon is saying. When you have people that have no wisdom get in power, watch out! Does this make you angry? It does make me angry. And I would probably be an activist, you know, fighting against this kind of thing, only I know that it doesn't do any good. Furthermore, I know that that's not the answer. You know, the answer is to save souls through the gospel. But that kind of thing, it just really irks me. I don't know if it does you, but it really irks me when I see this kind of thing happening. In Isaiah chapter 5, listen to what Isaiah says. Listen to this. Isaiah 5 20. Woe to those who call, what? evil, good, and good, evil. He says, woe to a land that takes something that is good and says, that's evil. And that's what we have happening in our own land right now. Things that are good are being called evil and things that are evil are being called good. Isaiah says, woe to those who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are clever in their own eyes. And we have a leadership now in our country, a leadership structure that is clever in its own eyes because they take God's Word and they say, we don't agree with that. We don't like it. We want to boot it out. And then they bring their own, quote, wisdom. Well, also Isaiah says in 5.23, he says, Woe to those who take away the rights of those who are in the right. Woe to those who take away the rights of those who are in the right. And my friends, that's the kind of society we have right now. Now, again, if you don't have a proper perspective on this, you might just really get angry, and it might frustrate you, and it might become an all-consuming kind of thing in your thought process. Don't let it happen, okay? I want to get rid of these election things so I can stop wanting to listen to this talk radio. But, because we get in the car, you know, and every time it's the same thing, and the kids say, why are we listening to that? It's like, well, I want to hear what it says. I don't like it, but I want to hear it. So the solution is recognize one of the keys for success. You got to realize that guess what? This is the way the power works. Sometimes you get people in power and it really kind of is a mess, but that's the way it is in a cursed world. We don't always have the ability to deal with these things. Alright, Solomon gives us a sixth key for success, down here in verses 8 and 9. He says this, he says, a sixth key for success is that you need to know the dangers of foolish living, because folly will almost always reward you with disaster. Live a foolish life, and you can almost count on it, you're probably going to end up with disaster. Now, we know that life is filled with dangers, right? All kinds of dangers. You can walk down the street, something happens to you. Life is filled with danger. And if you are not using wisdom in the way that you live, You're probably going to get hurt. Look what he says down here in verse 8. He says, he who digs a pit may fall into it. Now sometimes, like if you go into Psalm 7 verse 15, David talks about digging a pit and he says, the person that digs a pit is going to fall into it. And in that context, the idea is that if I'm trying to maybe build a trap to get you, maybe I'm digging a hole in the ground because I want to hurt you. David says, hey, if you try to do some kind of evil scheme, watch out. It's going to come back on you. I don't think the idea here in verses 8 and 9 has to do with evil kinds of scheming, but it's basically just talking about life in general. You've got to watch out. Maybe you're on your job. Maybe your job is to dig holes. Maybe you're a ditch digger. Solomon says, watch out because if you dig a pit, you might fall into it. In other words, if you are not using good wisdom, you're going to dig your hole, maybe you're going to even cover it over with something, and then you're going to forget about it, and then you're going to go and you're going to trip in it. Why would that happen? It happens if you're not using wisdom. It's if you're not using wisdom. The idea is this foolishness will almost certainly be rewarded with disaster Now the application okay is this and when I think about this kind of an idea the problem is is that sometimes listen Sometimes we don't think ahead Hillary you dig a hole don't be so short-sighted that you turn around and you fall back in the thing, right? I The application of the principle is this. If you want to have any value from wisdom, you've got to think before you act. That means that you weigh your decisions. You think about where you're at right now, and you say, gee, here I am right now, and five years from now, where am I going to be? Where am I going to be in ten years from now? Guess what? Today's decision is going to determine where you're going to be tomorrow, Five years, 10 years, 20 years from now. And if you're not thinking about your actions, you might do something that just really messes up your life. Think about your decisions. Get advice and then try to look at the implications of your decision. Listen, there is so much that can be said for simply listening to what people have to say, right? Just listening to people. The Bible, really if you want to look at the fool in the Bible, it says the fool, the real foolish person, is the one that won't listen to counsel. The Bible says there's more hope for a fool than a person that won't listen to advice. You know, you may be a stupid idiot in the way that you live your life, but if you listen to what somebody has to say, there's some hope for you. Not for the person that won't listen though. So, the point of application is this. Stop. and think about what people are telling you. Think about the things that you're doing right now. What is going to be the impact on you ten years from now, five years from now, twenty years from now? He says in the second illustration back here, if you look at verse 8, he says, A serpent may bite him who breaks through a wall. You may just be the worker, you know. You're a guy here tearing down an old mud wall because you're going to put up a new brick wall. You punch a hole through it with your hand and guess what? Snake bites you. Ah, gee, I didn't think about that, you know. That's the whole point. You didn't think before you acted, Timothy. No. You didn't think before you acted. The whole point is you have to think things out. Verse 9, he says, you may be Fred Flintstone, you know? You're the guy down there quarrying stones. You're Fred Flintstone. And you don't think what you're doing, and so you pick up a big rock. You quarry a stone, you're the one that'll get hurt by it. You may be the one that's chopping logs, and you don't think about it because you chop the log, and then guess what happens? The log comes flying back up. Have you ever had that happen? I have. You ever had that happen, Dave? Chop a log and then the stick comes flying up and hits you right in the face? Okay, the whole point is this, is that if you want to have any kind of prosperity in life, you need to think about what you're doing, and thinking about what you're doing means that you need to listen to people. The consequences of your actions, because wise people will be there, hopefully they'll be there, to give you some kind of good advice, and you need to be willing to listen. You know, when I had a motorcycle, it was a CB900 Honda. And it was fast, you know? It was real fast. I used to get on the freeway right there by my dad's house where I lived. And boy, I tell you what, by the time I got on the freeway on-ramp to the time I hit the freeway, I was probably doing about twice everybody else. And I got a couple of tickets on it. And so I had to go to traffic school. And you know what one of the one of the rules and I still kind of drive this way too. And Karen doesn't like it, but that's why I do it. One of the things that they teach you in traffic school for motorcycles is this, when you're driving a motorcycle, don't drive your motorcycle over there on the right hand edge of the road. You know why? Because you're most susceptible to somebody pulling out If you're over here on the right hand edge of the road, you know, somebody can pull out right in the edge in front of you. You may not see something happening and you're going to be, you know, most likely to get knocked down. What they suggest is, you know, try to get over in the middle of the road. If you've got the middle of the road, you know, stay towards the middle sign. And that's kind of the way I drive right now. So I'll be driving down the road, and I'll always kind of just take my car over towards the middle of the road. And Karen says, you're over in the middle. Get over further over. And that's kind of just a habit. But you know what? If you're thinking ahead, now here's the point. If you're thinking ahead about the dangers that you haven't even considered, that's the way that you can avoid them. Think about what's ahead of you. Now, we come down here in verses 10 Here's a seventh key for success. And by the way, I just want to repeat this. Listen to what people have to say. Listen to the advice of others. Verses 10-15, a seventh key for success in an uncertain world is that we need to seek to live by the ways of wisdom because to be wise means that we will promote success. We will do that. Now, Solomon gives us two lessons here in verses 10-15. If you apply wisdom, you'll get success, but if you ignore it, it's not going to do you any good. That's kind of obvious. In other words, you could be the smartest person in the world, but what if you don't do anything with it? You know, you may be very talented. You may be very skilled. You may be a great thinker. You may have a lot of things going for you, but if you don't make wise decisions, none of that's going to help you. You've got to apply wisdom. Now, notice what he says in verses 10-11. He says that if you apply wisdom, it gives you success. He says, if the axe is dull and he does not sharpen its edge, then he must exert more strength. When I lived up in Utah, we used to go out and we would chop down cedar trees for posts. You guys ever do that? You go out there and you either get a chainsaw, sometimes I'd use an axe and we'd chop down cedar trees and that's what you use for fence posts. You go and you put the fence post in and cedar trees last a long time. I'll tell you this, it makes a big difference if you got a sharp chainsaw Makes a big difference if you got a sharp chainsaw. If you're sawing something with a hacksaw, it's pretty nice when you have a sharp hacksaw, you know? Like over here when we were drilling these holes out, right? If we had had the wrong kind of drill drilling out 192 of these holes, It had to have been a long process, but we had the right kind of tool, the right kind of drill to do it, and so we were able to go through with a lot of success. Now, the point is this, okay, that life is kind of like chopping down a tree. If you are not applying yourself to do the things that you should be doing, it's kind of like you're working with a dull axe. Think about it this way, okay? If your tool is dull and you don't sharpen it ahead of time, you're really going to make life miserable for yourself. And that's how it is in life. If you don't get yourself a sharp tool, if you don't sharpen your tool right now, you're going to have a hard time in life. Let me boil it down even simpler. If you don't do well in school, you're not going to have a very good time in life. You're going to be like a person with an axe head trying to chop down a tree if you don't do well in school. You see, this is wisdom. Wisdom is looking and saying, gee, I've got a job to do. How can I do the best job possible? You know what you do? You take that axe and you put a razor sharp edge on it so that when you go wham, wham, maybe two or three chops, tree goes down. Otherwise, you've got to sit there 20, 30 times, you've got to pound the thing. And so, wisdom is that you look at life and you say, I need to apply myself. Follow what I'm saying? Now, it may not be school. It may be that you're already out of school and you've got to do some other kind of training for your job. And you want to know how you can be the best that you can be. Listen to people. Listen to the advice of other people. Read. Read things that will give you wisdom and skill. Whatever the point is, is that it is much better, okay, to work like an executive than to work like a dog. You know, I've told this before, you know, that I wanted to be a mechanic. And when I was in school, when I was in high school, because I like cars, you know, took auto shop. Matter of fact, the first year I took auto shop, I wanted to take auto shop when I was a sophomore. I used to read every car magazine I could get my hands on. Every car magazine that would come out, I'd buy it and I'd read it cover to cover. I learned a lot. I like cars. My dad liked cars. So when I was a sophomore, it was pride. I wanted to get into auto shop and you had to take a test. Or no, you had to take auto one, the basic kind of thing. And I didn't want to take it because I thought that I knew all those things. And so I didn't take it my sophomore year. And then the junior year, you know, I was going to have to take that class and I didn't want to. So I took a test and I did well on the test and they let me just go and take auto two. And, you know, I got into it my second year and my third year and I actually got a job. I was rebuilding engines for a cab company. and I'd go in there and I was rebuilding engines, this was my senior year, and, you know, I realized that I didn't want to be a mechanic. Because I would come home every night and I was just covered with grease, I mean horribly covered with grease, and I was sitting in this back room and, you know, it wasn't that much fun. Yeah, well, you won't if you have to work in it for a while, okay? It's okay when it's a hobby maybe, but when it's your job, it ain't so fun. And, you know, my dad kept saying, go to college. Go to college. You know, he says, I didn't finish college. Go to college. And, you know, I'm glad that my dad, you know, was persistent with me because I kind of stuck with it. And, you know, let me tell you this. It's much better to be white-collar than blue-collar. It's much better to work like an executive than to work like a dog. Okay? Now, there's a lot of fun things you can do, and I'm not putting down anybody that works with their hands. Actually, it's very rewarding sometimes to do things with your hands. But you see, my point that I'm getting to is that you need to sharpen your tools for life. This is what Solomon says down here. in this verse. He is saying in verse 10 that wisdom, notice what he says, has the advantage of giving success. You have to prepare. You know, Daniel, I forget who it was, one of your relatives, a family over in India, you said that wanted to come over to India. And I remember what you said one day. You said she did not prepare well. I forget what family member it was, but somebody in your family that wants to come to America, but what you said is she didn't work hard when she was young and she didn't prepare. And now it is not possible for her to come here and get any kind of a job. Nobody wants to hire her. Now, you see, if you do like Daniel and you get some education and you have the training, you might have that opportunity to come here and get some further opportunities, but not if you don't do the job. You hear what I'm saying? You have to do the job if you want to get anywhere in life. You know, Jim Nunn, you know, I was talking to him earlier next door and he was saying, you know, he says, I see a lot of the Oriental culture, especially he says the Chinese and the Korean culture. You know, these people were very hard. And, you know, there is such a drive in some of these families to, you know, succeed and to be successful that, you know, the kids work real hard. And he says, I don't see that in a lot of people around our own culture. That's true. Okay? The point is this, is that if you want to have success, he says you have to sharpen your axe because wisdom has the advantage of giving success. Don't be a fool. Don't be a fool. Don't miss your opportunities. You come down here also in verse 11. He gives another example. He says that if the serpent bites before being charmed, there is no profit for the charmer. Alright, here's the idea. What if my job was a snake charmer? Now, I don't think there's too much of a market for snake charmers here in Torrance, but it used to be the kind of thing that people would do back then. And actually, a charmer, the word... care, be quiet and sit down. The word for charm is actually a whisper, because what they do is they talk to the snakes, they'd whisper and they'd say things. How many of you have ever seen the Jungle Book, the Disney Jungle Book? Remember what Kaa says, trust in me, kind of like a whispering kind of a talk. That's what the charmers would do, they would talk to the snakes and they would get the snake kind of mesmerized and that's their job. and they'd make money charming snakes. Well, you've got a real problem there if you don't do your job first because the snake's going to bite you. You ain't going to get anything but dead if you do that. The whole point is this, if you apply wisdom you can have good success. But you have to apply it. If you don't apply it, then you have wasted opportunity. Now in verses 12-15, this is what he says, if you ignore wisdom, you have no profit. If you ignore wisdom, you have no profit. He says down here in verse 12, words from the mouth of a wise man are gracious. In other words, when you look at people who know how to control their mouth, and people who know how to speak properly with others. There is something good and profitable from that. There is something good and profitable. If you make it a point to be one who controls your tongue, you will learn how to speak appropriately, or else your mouth will ruin you. This is the idea. One writer said that wisdom will temper and guard and guide our actions. And he says this wisdom, the true wisdom, is found in the fear of God. Knowing God and living by God's ways will help you to curb your tongue. If those words are wise, it will produce good profitable benefits for you. Unfortunately, this kind of wisdom is not so common, is it? One commentator, I think it's interesting, one commentator by the name of Wright, he says, unfortunately, much of the mass media is dominated by those who pull down moral standards rather than build them up. He says, you know, a lot of speech that goes out, it's foolishness, you know, instead of being wise. But here in verses 12 to 15, Solomon gives five examples of the way that foolishness, that folly, will bring a person to ruin. He says, the words of a wise man are gracious, he says, but the lips of a fool will consume him. There's a contrast. A wise man, he gets good benefits from his wise speech, but a fool, his lips consume him. The point is this, if you speak foolishly, it's going to destroy you. Proverbs chapter 10 verse 8, he says, the wise of heart will receive commands, but a babbling fool will be thrown down. You know, and I put myself in that category. I've really been spoken real foolishly. You know, hopefully it's less than what it used to be. But, you know, quick to speak. I've always been one who's quick to speak, and when you're quick to speak, you're always going to say things that are stupid and foolish. And in the end, you know what you do? You regret that you were so quick to speak. It is so much better just to keep your mouth shut, you know? So much better to keep your mouth shut. And this is what we try to teach our children. Learn to just be quiet. Proverbs 10, verse 21, he says that fools die for lack of understanding. They speak and your mouth gets you in trouble because you don't know how to put a lid on it. Verse 13, he says, the beginning of a fool's talking is folly. When you start hearing a fool begin to speak, it's just idiocy. Now, you know what? I'm going to pick on these Democrats because I think some of the things that these guys are saying are absolute idiocy. You know, again, I guess the latest thing here is that, you know, another lawsuit, it says Gore's lawyers are aware that they must wage a full-blown trial and several rounds of appeals. And the thing that these guys are saying, it's double-speak about this whole election, I think they're better off just to be quiet. And a lot of people, even in the Democratic camp, are saying, hey, you know what, you guys be quiet and just go sit down. I wish they would. Proverbs 18.7, it says, a fool's lips, listen to this. A fool's lips bring strife and his mouth calls for blows. When some people speak, really what they deserve is they deserve to be slapped across the face. That's what the Bible says. Some people, really what they deserve from the things they say, they just deserve to be a blow on the mouth or a blow on the backside. And his lips, it says, are the snare of his soul. The lesson is this, okay? Just learn how to be quiet. He says in verse 13, the beginning is folly, but the end of it is madness and insanity. The point is this, wisdom does you no good if you don't use it. Verse 14, he says, nevertheless, he says, a fool multiplies words. The idea is people that just keep going on and on and they don't stop. And they talk about things that they don't know anything about. He says, no one knows what will happen and no one can tell him what will come after him. Some people talk with great confidence about things that they don't know, even the future. Much better it is, the Bible says, just be quiet and not talk about things with authority that you know nothing about. things about that you will never know. Verse 15, Solomon adds, he says, the toil of a fool so wearies him that he does not even know how to get to the city. So here's somebody that talks about things that they don't know anything about. Maybe they're talking about things like, you know, the future and things about, you know, issues, technical issues. They don't know anything about it. And yet, guess what? They get lost. They can't even get back to their home in the city. That's bad. All right. So far, Solomon has given us seven keys for success. There is one final one right here, and I'm going to give that to you. The first key to success, he said, understand how fragile wisdom is. Number two, have a proper perspective of how wisdom works. It doesn't always work the way that it should. Number three, he said, recognize the limitations of wisdom. that one little bit of foolishness can destroy a lot of wisdom. Number four, he says, don't forget about the value of wisdom, verses two to four. Number five, he says, remember that oftentimes people get in power who don't have much wisdom. Accept it. Number six, he says, remember that there are dangers in life, and you've got to think about the dangers in life. Number seven, he says that you should try to live by the ways of wisdom, and that means that applying things to your life right now. And finally, an eighth key for success, verses 16 to 20, learn how to deal with mismanagement in leadership when it comes. Fact of life, you're going to have bad leaders, okay? Go back here to chapter 10. Look what he says down here in chapter 10, verse 5, where he says, evil under the sun, where errors go forth from a ruler. Now, what Solomon does in verses 16 and 20, we're going to pull it together with this, four principles that help us to deal with the reality of bad leadership in a nation, bad management. First of all is this, you have to recognize the reality of bad leaders. Verse 16, he says, Woe to you, O land, whose king is Aladdin, whose princes feast in the morning. He pronounces like a funeral. Woe to the land if the king is a lad. Now, the idea here is somebody that has no experience. They're very foolish. It's like a little kid. And what they do is, it says, look at this, verse 16, their princes feast in the morning. All right, let me translate that for you into a contemporary thinking. Here's a person that parties in the morning. They feast in the morning. Here's a person who doesn't understand the proper place for play versus work. Let me put it to you in American terms. Here's a person that uses the White House as a personal play area, okay? How's that one? Here's a person who doesn't understand the dignity of the leadership role and basically makes it into a big party. The Bible says, woe to the land when you have people in power like that. He says, on the other hand, verse 17, blessed are you, O land, whose king is of nobility, whose princes eat at the appropriate time for strength and not drunkenness. You have a good leader when you have somebody who has some virtue and some value that knows that you don't make a part. You know what? It's a moral issue. But it's what the text says, okay? It just happens to be a good illustration. He says, if you have somebody that recognizes the proper way to lead a country with some dignity, he says, then you have a great virtue. Also, he says in verse 18, the second principle, you have to recognize bad management. And then you look at the results of bad management. Verse 18, he says, through indolence the rafters sag and through slackness the house leaks. Well, that's obvious. If you don't take care of your property, it's going to fall apart, right? One little thing here, one little thing there, it starts falling apart. You gotta take care of maintenance. This is also true in a nation. If you don't give care to the maintenance of your land, which is what he's dealing with in context, the thing falls apart. Like the military. If you don't have people keeping things up on that, guess what? It'll fall apart. And that's kind of where we're getting to be. From what I understand, our country is really in a pretty perilous situation. We got into a big conflict right now. So a good leader will prevent these kinds of bad results by giving attention to it. Now, the principle here is this. You have to be a diligent leader. You can't be lazy. A third principle in verse 19 is this. The reason for bad management, he says, people prefer a meal for enjoyment, and wine makes them merry, and money is the answer. Here's the kind of thing. Hey guys, let's have a party, let's have a feast. They don't think about bread as being something for having food and energy and nourishment for the day. Life is a party. Wine, let's party it up. Money, hey, we've got money here, we've got our problems solved. We need more money, more taxes. So this is a bad leader, somebody who looks at their job as a party. food, feasting, drinking and more money. He says, that's just basically the problem here is that you've got a bad leader in your position of leadership. And finally, in verse 20, how do we respond to it? The response to bad leadership? He says, be careful, especially if you're living under a tyrant, a dictator or an absolute monarch. some kind of a despot, he says, furthermore in your bedchamber do not curse a king and in your sleeping rooms don't curse a rich man because a bird of heavens will carry the sound and the winged creature will make the matter known. In other words, be careful about, I guess it has to convict me on my illustrations. Was I cursing the king tonight? I don't know. What he says is, watch out because if you have a person who has absolute power and you say some bad things about him, they'll find out. And you may really be in sad shape if this guy finds out that you've been saying bad things about him. Kind of in terms of applying it to ourself, you know, watch out that you don't go against the leadership in a way that it would create a bad problem for you. If you cross the leadership, whoever that is, if it's some leadership that has power, and you cross the leadership, it may make it real, real nasty for you because they will turn against you. And we don't have that kind of a place, you know? I guess that's true. I guess that's unless you're a Republican who's demonstrating, right? You heard what happened here, you know, about what, two weeks ago is when Jesse Jesse Jackson was down there about two or three weeks ago. Jesse Jackson went down there in Florida, and he was saying, oh, this is racism, all these things, a bunch of things, and stirring up all these demonstrations. And he had all these Democratic demonstrators. And then what happened is that when they were counting those election ballots, and the Republicans wanted to, they changed places where they were counting the ballots. And they started doing it in a place where none of the people could observe them. that a group of Republican demonstrators went outside and said, we want to be in there and watch this. We want to see what's going on here. And then, you know, like Joe Lieberman, what he said was, he says, oh, this is horrible. These people shouldn't be out here doing this, demonstrating. In other words, you guys can't be doing this, you know. Kind of a double standard there. Kind of a double standard. In any case, What we have here is a situation where in terms of how to deal with it, we live in a land where we can speak our mind, we can speak our voice, and we can object if we don't like what's going on. In that culture, you could not. You say something bad about the king, you're very well likely to lose your neck. And so he says, watch out. If you're going to cross the leadership, just watch out because they may find out. Now, there's application, you know. Let's say in your job, don't say bad things about your boss. your boss will find out, you know, whatever it might be, you know, watch out, don't say bad things about other people. That's a good rule. That's avoiding gossip, everything else. Well, in any case, that kind of summarizes, Solomon does summarize this for us, keys to success and how we can have success in an uncertain world. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this night and for the time that we've had to learn from you about how we can get through this world and how we can Make it through with as much success as possible. I do pray, Lord, that you'd help us to live these things out. And I ask for your forgiveness for me and, Lord, that each one of us would be willing to ask your forgiveness for areas where we do sin and we do fall short. And I pray that you would help us to just live more upright lives individually. and that as a Christian we would be living a life that is pleasing to you and will bring you glory. I pray, Father, that you would help us, Lord, to reach many people in our city, in our neighborhood, and we just want to see people come to know you. So we ask that you will give us this kind of grace, and we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.