So, without looking on your phones, just turn to a couple people around you and try to answer this question. How many words do you think we speak every day? Okay, just talk about that for a second. Without looking it up. Okay, I think a lot of words were just spoken right there, just listening. I don't know that anybody knows exactly, but a lot of the experts say that it's 16,000 a day. In a person's lifetime, then, on average, that would be 860.3 million words. That's a lot of words. You know, some of them are just like routine, right? Put the toy back in the toy box. Or what time are you getting home? But words, some of the words are deep, personal, emotional words that either really build people up, or unfortunately tear them down. And the scripture says so much about how we use our words, and that's one of the topics today. It's not the only topic today. We're going through Ecclesiastes, and we're up to chapter 10, and this passage, we're gonna start at 9.13 and go through 10.20. This sermon is titled, On the Other Hand. because there are a lot of contrasts in this chapter and speech is one of them. So wise speech looks like this, for instance, but on the other hand, foolish speech looks like that. And we'll be looking at several things in relation to wisdom versus foolishness. We come to this section following right after last week, Ecclesiastes chapter nine, which gave us examples about wisdom. But then it started transitioning and discussing how the fact that wisdom is limited. And this section today picks right up on that. It builds on that. by contrasting wisdom and folly. So I invite you to stand with me, please, and we're going to read Ecclesiastes chapter 10. We'll come back to the verses that lead into it in a few minutes. Out of the Christian standard Bible, Ecclesiastes chapter 10. This might be the only sermon you've ever heard that started out with the word dead flies. Dead flies make a perfumer's oil ferment and stink. So a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. A wise person's heart goes to the right, but a fool's heart to the left. Even when the fool walks along the road, his heart lacks sense, and he shows everyone he is a fool. If the ruler's anger rises against you, Don't leave your post, for calmness puts great offenses to rest. There's an evil I've seen under the sun, an error proceeding from the presence of the ruler. The fool is appointed to great heights. but the rich remain in lowly positions. I have seen slaves on horses, but princes walking on the ground like slaves. The one who digs a pit may fall into it. And the one who breaks through a wall may be bitten by a snake. The one who quarries stones may be hurt by them. The one who splits logs may be endangered by them if the ax is dull. and one does not sharpen its edge, then one must exert more strength. However, the advantage of wisdom is that it brings success. If the snake bites before it is charmed, then there's no advantage for the charmer. His mouth is folly, but the end of his speaking is evil madness, yet the fool multiplies words. No one knows what will happen, and who can tell anyone what will happen after him? The struggles of fools weary them, for they don't know how to go to the city. Woe to you, land, when your king is a youth and your princes feast in the morning. Blessed are you, land, when your king is a son of nobles and your princes feast at the proper time for strength and not for drunkenness. Because of laziness, the roof caves in. And because of negligent hands, the house leaks. A feast is prepared for laughter, and wine makes life happy, and money is the answer for everything. Do not curse the king, even in your thoughts. Now, God's word for us this morning is this. Wisdom may be limited, but it is needed. Wisdom may be limited, but it is needed. Now, I wrestled a little bit with that sentence there, that summary, that one word. It could be necessary, or it could be beneficial, or it could be helpful. It's all of those things. And that's what this chapter is going to show us. Now, the six verses that concluded chapter nine discuss the limitations of wisdom. And 9, 13 to 18 is kind of like a hinge, like the hinge on a door between chapter nine and chapter 10. Again, after giving all these examples of wisdom, we get a little history lesson. We get a little story. So let's read that. The teacher, who's the one speaking here, the teacher says, I've observed that this is also wisdom under the sun. And it's significant to me. There was a small city with a few men in it. A great king came against it, surrounded it and built large siege works against it. Now a poor wise man was found in the city and he delivered the city by his wisdom. Yet no one remembered that poor man. And I said, wisdom is better than strength. But the wisdom of the poor man is despised and his words are not heeded. Now one lesson from this story is that you cannot count on public gratitude. You would have thought in that story, this city is being sieged by this great king and it's just a small city and there's one little poor wise man, but his words of wisdom saved the city. And you would have thought everybody in the city would have been really happy and said, wow, isn't it great what this wise man did, but he was poor. And unfortunately, in their world, just like in our world today, sometimes people value things like position and money over true wisdom. And poor people can be easily overlooked. So verse 17 tells us what should happen. The calm words of the wise are heated more than the shouts of a ruler over fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner can destroy much good. People should listen to the words of the wise, but often they don't. And the lesson here is that even though wisdom is better than power, one sinner can destroy a lot of good. And that leads us right into chapter 10. That leads us right into the verse about the dead flies that we're gonna get to in a second. So it's this idea of wisdom is being put out there, but you can't always depend on how people will recognize it or sustain it. And so as we look at chapter 10, we're gonna discover some reasons why wisdom is needed. Reason number one is it only takes a little folly to destroy a life of wisdom. You can have a whole life of wisdom built up and it gets destroyed by just a little folly. Dead flies make a perfumer's oil ferment and stink. So a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. So in the culture of the ancient Near East, flies were very pesky. And there might be some perfumed oil sitting out and the fly might land in it and get stuck in there, in it, and die in it. And now this beautiful perfume has got a dead fly in it. And it's inconvenient and it stinks. You have this ostensibly expensive perfume and and a fly can come in there and mess it up. The original language reads, makes stink, makes bubble up. The point is that something that is going well can be ruined by just a small amount of foolishness. Other ways to say this proverb that I read this week are, an ounce of folly can destroy a ton of wisdom. or it takes far less to ruin something than to create it. You ever been working on building a great tower or creation with Legos with your children or grandchildren and oh, it's just, oh, it takes a lot of time and oh, intricate, and then the younger sibling comes along and like boom, it's gone. You know, it can happen fast. Or maybe you've been painting and you've been very careful on all the, not to spill any paint, not to get any paint on this side and this, and you're careful, careful, and then you drop the brush on the carpet, no less. Just a little bit of folly. You're laughing because you've done it, I know. I've never done it, I've just heard people did it. Students love them. He's having a really bad day, just one bad day, and he's mad and he's upset, and he gets mad at a student and he yells in the student face and puts his hand on the student, shakes the student, right, as the principal's walking by. Just a little folly can destroy a lot, right? Maybe a woman and a man are married for 30 years, 40 years, and they have a good marriage, she gets unhappy and sleeps with another man. And all of that goodness can get destroyed with just a little folly. On and on we could go. As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. Verse two. A wise person's heart goes to the right, but a fool's heart goes to the left. We need to say something about this word fool. It's not a word that we advise using normally in our English contemporary use, but biblically, there's a contrast between foolishness and wisdom, and the Bible, especially in the wisdom literature, uses the word fool, and it has nothing to do with someone's intellectual capacity. It's about your moral direction and decision. So it's a contrast. The wise live one way. They hear God's words and put God's principles into practice. But the fool is the person who doesn't do that. And here it also speaks biblically about right and left. Scripture, right is seen as the correct route and left is seen as the erroneous path. But notice what's walking down that path. It doesn't say their feet take them down the path. A wise person's heart goes to the right and a fool's heart goes to the left. Our inner persons are either attuned to God or not. Verse three, even when the fool walks along the road, his heart lacks sense and he shows everyone he is a fool. This may be an attempt at a little humor on the writer's part. It's like the fool just can't hide himself. By his actions, by his words, he just makes it clear to everyone how foolish he is. Now, speaking of wisdom, verse four gives us some good counsel for what happens if a government official gets mad at you. If the ruler's anger rises against you, don't leave your post for calmness puts great offenses to rest. So it's envisioning someone that works for this official. And if they get mad at you, it's very tempting to walk away and to quit and say, I'm done. But a quick, Perhaps immature response to someone who is responding incorrectly to you is not wisdom, it's not the best way. It's not gonna solve the problem and it might make the problem worse. So the prescription is here, calmness puts great offenses to rest. It reminds us of Proverbs 16, 14. A king's fury is a messenger of death, but a wise person appeases it. In Proverbs 15, 1, a gentle answer turns away anger. but a harsh word stirs up wrath. Now, I've kept verse four there in the outline with one to three, but it could go with the next section as well, because the next section gives us the second reason why wisdom is needed, and it focuses on the foolish things that leaders sometimes do, and in that case, it was kings, but for us, it could be leaders of any sort at any level of government. And this is the second reason why wisdom is needed. Foolishness can show up in political appointments. Look at verse 5. There's an evil I've seen under the sun, an error proceeding from the presence of the ruler. The fool is appointed to great heights, but the rich remain in lowly positions. I have seen slaves on horses, but princes walking on the ground like slaves. So, verse four envisioned an autocratic ruler, the kind that's just gonna get mad and yell at people or whatever. This envisions a weak leader, someone who doesn't have a good moral bearing, weak, foolish rulers, and things are turned upside down, right? Rather than godly people in leadership, there can be foolish people in leadership. And that's what the teacher has observed. I've seen it, I've seen it. Now in that day, the average citizen didn't own horses. Not like, oh, I got my pet horse. No, horses were reserved for military and nobility, royalty. But the teacher walks around and And slaves who were the lowest on the totem pole were the ones riding on the horses, but princes who, quote unquote, should have been riding on the horse, they were walking. Now thankfully, we don't have kings or slaves in our culture. But that was the meaning for them. And how do we think about it today? How do we apply it today? What is significant about it for today? Foolish people can be in political leadership. This isn't about party. It can be any party. You can have foolish people in political leadership. And what can we do about it? Well, one thing we can do is trust a sovereign God, that God is in control. Another thing we can do is we can vote for wise, humble, godly people. And another thing we can do is pray for all of those in authority. that they will be wise and humble and godly. The third reason why we need wisdom relates to just some very, very practical everyday situations. And that is, I've just summarized it as saying accidents happen. Show that you're wise by being prepared for every task. Show that you're wise by being prepared every test. So the one who digs a pit may fall into it. The one who breaks through a wall may be bitten by a snake. A farmer or a hunter who's digging this pit could actually end up falling into it if they're not careful. And if you're demolishing a wall, a snake might come out and bite you. The one who quarries stones may be hurt by them. The one who splits logs may be endangered by them. If you're a quarryman in that day, you need to be alert so that the slab, the loose slab won't break away and fall on you. And if you're splitting logs, you need to be careful so that what you're splitting don't fly up in your face or the heavy log doesn't roll over on your leg. Sometimes I'm wise and sometimes I'm not. In my backyard, I have a huge mimosa tree. I mean, it's one of those ones that has all these different bases and it's, I mean, it's huge. And has some nice blooms in the late spring and early summer. But those branches get going and they get up near my deck and all these things. And so, you know, some of them are, I'm guessing 30 feet high, I'm not sure. I can't reach the very top of them. But I got the bright idea that I was gonna go buy one of those long poles, like 12-foot poles. It's got the little saw on the end of it, and you can saw it, but you can also, it's got a rope thing that you can pull it and cut. And I have done that many times. I'm like, oh, let me trim these, and I've trimmed these. I was trimming one a few months ago, and I am very fortunate to be standing here today because I didn't think about the fact of how big that branch actually was and that it was gonna fall and almost hit me in the head. Or maybe like one of our elders, whose name I will not mention, using his chainsaw and cutting himself. Okay, I'll mention him, Chainsaw Will, Will Cavanaugh. Stuff happens, right? Will didn't go out one day and thought, oh, I'm gonna hurt myself. Accidents happen. We need to plan. We need to be careful. If the ax is dull and one does not sharpen its edge, then one must exert more strength. However, the advantage of wisdom is that it brings success. Obviously, they didn't have chainsaws back then, so they had to sharpen the ax. Everything was cut with the ax. I've kind of always applied this to training and like education, right? Sharpen your ax. You know, get as much education as you can because that's gonna help prepare you. Do the training, do the work. If you're wise in preparation, It's not an absolute promise, but success generally follows. That's what wisdom literature is. It tells us what generally happens. Verse 11, if the snake bites before it is charmed, then there's no advantage for the charmer. Well, there's some interesting verses in this chapter. This last one's different from the others. The other ones were like common daily chores, but Snake charming, not so much, but it was a thing. And I think the point is there's danger there and the snake charmer better, better be ready and better be prepared and do his thing quickly or something could happen to them. By the way, snake charming was not a career path I considered. Fourth reason why wisdom is needed It's because speaking and acting wisely matters. We see this in verses 12 to 15. One of the most frequent topics in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament is speech. And as we talked about earlier, if we say 16,000 words, and even if you say, well, I don't say that many, even if you say 10,000 words, that's a lot of words every day. How we use those words matter. Look at verse 12, the words from the mouth of the wise person are gracious, but the lips of a fool consume him. The beginning of the words from his mouth is folly, but the end of his speaking is evil madness. What a contrast. Gracious speaking on the one hand, versus words that destroy. And not only destroy others, they end up destroying the person speaking. They consume him. And even the picture is like kind of from start to finish, the whole life. The beginning of his words, his folly, and the end, his evil madness. It's just comprehensive. And he just keeps on talking. Verse 14, yet the fool multiplies words. No one knows what will happen, and who can tell anyone what will happen after him? The struggle of fools weary them, for they don't know how to go to the city." I guess this is a hard verse to understand how it fits in the context, but I think the context is what's important. And I think verse 14 might just be stressing that even when there are unknowns, The foolish person just keeps multiplying words, right? Isn't it foolish when you don't really know what to do or say, but you just keep talking anyway? No one knows what happened, and who can tell what will happen after him? And then verse 15 conveys that even the simplest task can elude the foolish person, like knowing how to get to the city. Everybody should know how to get to the city. General Robert E. Lee was once asked what he thought of a fellow officer in the Confederate Army, an officer who had made some mean-spirited remarks about him. And so he thought about it for a minute, and he answered, well, I think he's quite satisfactory. And the person asking the question said, Well, sir, are you aware of the things that he has said about you? And he paused and looked at him and said, you asked me what my opinion of him was, not what his opinion of me was. I think that's a good, good guide. Well, the last few verses teach us that wise and diligent leaders are necessary for the good of the land. So we get more about leadership now we've had some hints about it in the book and not just hints we've had some statements but now these last verses tend to relate almost exclusively to that maybe exclusive to that look look how it starts in verse 16 woe to you land when your king is a youth and your princess feast in the morning blessed are you land when your king is a son of nobles and your princess feast at the proper time for strength and not for drunkenness. Political leaders influence their nations. They influence their communities. And the first example in verse 16 of an immature leader, that's what it's referring to about youth, has no experience but a lot of decadence, right? Just feasting in the morning rather than working for the common good. Oh, let's just party. That's not a wise leader. The land is not going to be in good shape. The land is not going to be secure if that's who they are. But according to verse 17, the land is going to be in good shape if you have an experienced leader who comes from a noble heritage and works well with officials that are self-controlled and not drunk, the princes. They know when to eat, they know when to drink. As good national leaders exhibit personal independence, maturity, wisdom, and self-control. Selfish, arrogant, and pleasure-seeking leaders bring trouble to any nation. And the same kind of character that can lead to bad things at a national level can also apply in your own home. Look at verse 18 at the micro level. Because of laziness, the roof caves in, and because of negligent hands, the house leaks. Laziness can lead to a house that will collapse. I have a feeling there might be some Conversation later today about honeydew list based on this verse. Verse 19, a feast is prepared for laughter and wine makes life happy and money is the answer for everything. Now, that can be a difficult verse, especially if you just lift it out of context, right? The most important principle for interpreting a Bible verse correctly is interpreting it in context with what comes before it and after it. You can lift it out of context and make it mean all kind of things. I sent my notes, but I remember the old story about the guy who did that and he opened his Bible and he read, Jesus went out and hung himself, or Judas went out and hung himself. I'm not sure if I like that one or not. So let me do another one. And he turns and goes, go thou and do likewise. You got to understand what comes before it and after it. So what is he saying and what is happening here? Here's a pretty literal translation of the original. For laughter they prepare food and wine that brings joy to the living and money answers or meets the demands of both. So verse 16 and 17 had spoken of inappropriate partying, right? And verse 18 about laziness. So perhaps this is implying that the money that should have been used to prepare the house and build the nation used for repairs had been spent on feasting. I think in context that makes sense to me. I mean, it might just be an innocent statement that money is necessary to buy food and drink and life, but put it all in the proper perspective. We know Ecclesiastes has told us many times that God recognizes and wants us to enjoy life and have those things in its proper use. not in hedonism. Well, the final verse of the chapter comes back to address how we respond to rulers, specifically how to talk about them and not to talk about them. Do not curse the king even in your thoughts. Do not curse a rich person even in your bedroom. For a bird of the sky may carry the message and a winged creature may report the matter. Now again, this is poetry, right? It's wisdom literature. You think, oh, that sounds far-fetched. Well, just five years ago, a man named James Stevens was fired from his job as the chief financial officer for the Georgia Subsequent Injury Trust Fund. His supervisor, Mike Cohen, called him right after work and they had a conversation. And so he put his phone in his pocket and he accidentally pocket dialed his supervisor. Didn't know this phone was on, but he's just venting to his wife about how bad his supervisor is. And the supervisor's just sitting there listening to it all. and there were lawsuits about it and all this kind of stuff. But that's a contemporary version of a bird in the sky might just carry that message, right? This chapter has covered a lot of topics, right? But think about it. Everything we do and say matters. Big things matter, Medium things matter. Small things matter. And we need wisdom in all of it. The character of leaders matters. Even small things can have big effects. That's why I say wisdom may be limited. It may not always be appreciated. It may not always be honored. It may not always be sustained. And a little bit of folly can destroy it. But it's needed. Wisdom is needed, and the question is, I wanna close with two questions. Where do we get wisdom, and how can we live it out? We need to go beyond Ecclesiastes that tells us these valuable things about wisdom, and we need to answer that question. Well, how can I get wisdom? And not how can I just know what the right things to do are, but how can I actually live it out? And quite simply, I would say we get wisdom from God. We get wisdom from God. Listen to some of these, maybe familiar verses, but very important verses. Proverbs 1-7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. That's where it starts, respecting God. Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight. James 1, 5. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to you. Colossians 2, Paul the apostle wrote, my goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. We get wisdom from God. We get wisdom from his book. We get wisdom from Christ. But how can we live it out? Because many of us know these things. Many of us read these things. We go to Bible studies and we study these things. We go to a church service and we hear these things. How can we live a life of wisdom? Do any of us have enough power on our own? Well, let's think about Galatians 5 as we say, it happens through God's power. God will empower us to live wise lives if we submit to Him. Galatians 5 verse 22 to 26. The verses leading into this talk about, since we live in the Spirit, we need to keep step in the Spirit, or at least that's in the overall passage, and it talks about all the works of the flesh, these horrible things that happen when people are controlled by the sinful nature, but the fruit of the Spirit. Now, look at all these things that are going match up with Ecclesiastes, what Ecclesiastes says a wise life is. Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not be conceited, provoking and envying each other. Can I ask you this morning, do you belong to Christ Jesus? The way you belong to Christ Jesus is to acknowledge and admit that you, just like me and all of us and everybody who's ever lived, have broken God's laws, have done wrong, have sinned, and on our own we're walking a path away from God, and so we don't belong to Christ Jesus automatically, But when we realize what we celebrated here today with communion, that he decided to come and live among us and be perfect and die an incredible death to pay for our sins, when we acknowledge that, when we admit that, when we turn to him and say, here I am, I believe in you. Follow you. Come into my life. Be my Savior. I believe you're Lord. I believe you're Lord. I believe you're the Master. I believe you rose from the dead. When that happens, that begins a life of following Jesus. And if so, part of that is crucifying the flesh with its passions and desires. And then it's a daily thing. Can't do it just once. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Wisdom may be limited, but it's needed.