We can begin, Mr. Maycheck is here. Can't sneak in. Let's turn to Ecclesiastes as we continue our study in Ecclesiastes chapter 10, looking tonight at the first three verses. Ecclesiastes 10, verses 1 to 3. This is God's holy and infallible word. Dead flies putrefy the perfumer's ointment and cause it to give off a foul odor. So does a little folly to one respected for wisdom and honor. A wise man's heart is at his right hand, but a fool's heart at his left. Even when a fool walks along the way, he lacks wisdom, and he shows everyone that he is a fool. God's holy word. May he be pleased to write it on our hearts. Let's pray. Our Father, as we have in a variety of ways confessed in this service of worship, we are dependent upon you. May all our hearts and thoughts be stayed upon you. May we hear and look to you and be empowered by your spirit to receive your word. We pray this in our Savior's name. Amen. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. It doesn't take much. Drop a bit of iodine in water, watch it diffuse, and soon the whole takes on a purplish cast from the iodine. It doesn't take much. Solomon at the end of chapter 9, as we saw recently, says that one sinner destroys much good. We saw that in Adam. We saw that since our last time in Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter. One bringing much destruction and sorrow to many. Sometimes it's much, but from only one. And so it doesn't take much or many. to bring great ruin, does it? And here's our theme from these verses in Ecclesiastes 10, 1 to 3. Folly persisted in proves ruinous. Folly persisted in proves ruinous. First of all, making, albeit a small beginning. Secondly, molding, as it does over time, the heart And thirdly, marking ultimately the life. Folly proves ruinous. Making a small beginning, molding the heart, marking the life. Given all of our sin, which is but another name for folly, this might sound and feel rather discouraging. Is there no remedy? Yes. Yes. We need not walk in folly, but can by God's grace put it to death, implicating self-discipline and repentance. Folly persisted, and we say proves ruinous, even though it has a small beginning. Solomon, as he so often does, employs in verse 1 of our text a masterful illustration of just a bit of folly, showing us how that it doesn't take much. Verse 1, dead flies putrefy the perfumer's ointment and cause it to give off a foul odor. So does a little folly to one respected for wisdom and honor. Surely we might in many situations reason the sweet smell of a favorite perfume would conceal much that is malodorous, use some cologne in other words, and cover up that stink. Certainly a sweet ointment. There are different ways of translating this, but this sweet smelling thing in a pre regular showering or bathing era as this was, I mean, we tend to not think about this. You go to places in the world now and get some experience of this. We're around people even on public transport. often, more than not, bathed recently, but that's a pretty recent phenomenon, and in many places of the world thought to be a pretty weird phenomenon. We won't get into all of those things, but it's pretty recent. And of course, perfume would be used frequently by certainly the better off to make tolerable the ordinary stench, the so-called French bath, as some people refer to them. Note that this perfume is not being splashed on one who has otherwise no wisdom or honor. Notice that. The one in view in verse 1, to whom a little folly proves harmful, is one otherwise respected for wisdom and honor. But there's a pebble in the shoe, a cockroach in the spaghetti, a fly in the ointment. You heard that? Boys and girls, you heard of a fly in the ointment? Here it is. Right in the Bible. The perfume. Swallowed a fly. I don't know why. No, but here's a fly in the perfume. So the otherwise sweet smell and the intended effect of the perfume is ruined. A fly has died in the perfume perhaps, and what would otherwise serve as a sweet savor is putrid and gives off a foul odor. So it's not able to do its job. What was supposed to make you smell good, it still smells bad. It's no good. Solomon says, but a little folly, it doesn't take much, to one who is respected for wisdom and honor is like those dead flies in the perfume, enough to stink up the whole place. Will something said or done, possibly in jest, or even with good intentions, as Keddie notes, may hurt our friends and cast a shadow over our personal integrity. Personal friendships have dissolved into bitterness over a single silly remark. Many lives have been devastated because of a couple of extra drinks on the way home. Or the inattentiveness of a trucker on the Indiana Turnpike. You know about that, right, this past week? Eight people. Why? Why are these people there? Well, surely he didn't intend it. But you see, that's little consolation. There was not a mechanical failure. We do know that. And the police report that there was some sort of inattention. Some sort of negligence. But what a horrible negligence that is. I mean, one could simply drop something and reach over to pick it up when driving. You say, well, I just did that. You're driving a deadly instrument. I mean, if you're driving a truck, you're really driving a deadly instrument. And again, you know, we really have to get over this. We've had these discussions in our family. But I didn't mean it. You've got a whole book of the Bible, Leviticus, in which you must give sacrifice and offering for unintentional sin. I didn't mean it. It doesn't mean anything in terms of, well, I'm not responsible for it. Of course you're responsible. Negligence is responsible. Irresponsibility is irresponsibility. Well, I just wasn't paying attention. Oh, well that makes it all alright. No. No. I forgot. Don't we all forget? Yeah. But we have to take responsibility for this. I think this is part of what this is saying. Bridges says, Charles, not Lloyd, it's not only the shame of gross sins that injure purity. A little folly is enough to produce immense mischief. The unguarded moment, the hasty word, the irritable temper, the rudeness of manner, the occasional slip, the supposed harmless eccentricities, all tend to spoil the fragrance of the ointment. And he says, the neglect of serving the Lord in little things excites revolt. Well, if this is so, you might say despairingly. We sing a hymn, No, not despairingly. You hear this and you might be thinking. This all sounds pretty legalistic. Where's the grace of the gospel? I'm with you there. I understand what you're saying. And you've got a point there. If this is so, You might say all is lost and all is hopeless. Why might you say that? Because I hope you don't think that you don't have such folly. I hope that you don't think, yes, Pastor, I am so glad you're preaching this because I'm thinking about that person and I know you must be too. Now, when you hear this, you must say, who does it? To whom does this not apply? We must be lost. Excuse me while I pick up my page. We must be lost. All of us. All of us. We have so much sin and we so often fail to manifest, don't we, the fruit of the Spirit. Every earnest soul should cry out when you hear this, that just a fly ruins the perfume, that it doesn't take much. Is there nothing to be done? Surely we'll all come to ruin as we're all afflicted with more than a little folly, a thoughtless word, a hateful look, a careless action, a neglectful avoidance. Well, first of all, we must trust our substitute. Jesus, during the course of his earthly life, never had any folly. And he didn't have any folly not because He needed to come to this earth and live as a man and have no folly for Himself or for the Father or for the Spirit, simply for that reason. He came and He lived and He had no folly because we're full of it. And there needed to be a perfect record of no folly. And He goes to the cross and He dies for all of our sins, not just big sins, but everything. Because, see, a lot of us, we think, well, I don't have such big sins. Doesn't matter. Everything. Unintentional? He didn't have any sin. He went to the cross and He paid for our sin. Here's just that much more argument for you to trust Him. If it doesn't take much, you need Him that much more. If just a little gets you off the path. If one violation of the law means you violated the whole, which is what James says. I love the illustration there. You know, this is another home one. The glass is cracked and I say, this glass is broken. Oh no, it's not broken. Or what you mean, it's not shattered on the floor in three million pieces. But it's broken. It's got a crack. That's called a broken glass. The glass is broken. You know, even if it was still whole stuff. But it's broken. That's the way it is with the law. One thing. And it's broken. Well, we don't have to have a perfect record. Oh, yes, we do. Oh, yes, we do. You know, it's always amazing when you say that. People look at you and you're like, do you forget that you have it in Christ? Do you know Him? We do? We have to have a perfect record? Yes, that's why Jesus came to this earth. This is not about, well, let's all just muddle through together. No, we need this perfection and we have it in Christ. Knowing that, trusting Him, we're also called to obey. And we can, particularly by two things, avoid coming to ruin. Though this is a small beginning, a small beginning, it doesn't take much, we can employ self-discipline. Bridges says, how did the fly come to be in the ointment? Should we ask that question? Yes. Perhaps inattentiveness or neglect on the part of the one who made it, the apothecary, as you would call it in the older way. How to keep the fly out? Well, close that perfumed bottle. Put the top back on. But Keddie says this. We need to know the potential dangers and thus think about damage control in advance. Quick tempers and quick silver tongues need training and self-control to head off rash outbursts. The Apostle Paul speaks of beating his body and making it his slave. In 1 Corinthians 9, that's a figurative way of describing the need for personal holiness, to die to sin, to live in the Holy Spirit. We need to forearm ourselves against all of our own frailties and the sins that come from that. Once that self-discipline is in place, we still can't relax in the sense, not be vigilant. We must be prepared at all times, 1 Timothy 4.2 says. We must watch and pray in case we fall into temptation. That's what Jesus says. Watch and pray, lest you fall into temptation. And we must like Gideon's soldiers at the brook, be ready for action even as we refresh ourselves. What about when we speak wrongly or act carelessly as we surely will? Now, I'm calling for discipline. But you say, Pastor, I want to be and I've tried it, but I fail a lot. Yes. Yes. Yes. Repent. When you speak wrongly or act carelessly, repent. See your sin. Acknowledge it. Don't make excuses. See, that's not doing so when you say, well, I didn't mean to do that. I had no intention of doing that. See your sin. Acknowledge your sin. Hate your sin. Turn from your sin. This makes it right. This removes the offense. This turns folly into wisdom. Real repentance. will be received certainly by other saints of the Lord. I mean, if somebody doesn't receive repentance and won't grant forgiveness, then they're sinning. But those who truly repent and seek forgiveness, they can turn and we can turn those acts, those foolish acts, those little follies into wisdom. We can show that we're wise. by repenting and being ready to repent, desirous of repenting. Folly persisted in, you see, though from a small beginning proves ruinous, molding the heart. Our second point. Verse 2 says, a wise man's heart is at his right hand, but a fool's heart at his left. You see, it's from the heart that folly comes. The pastor was talking about that this morning. He talked about the soul and the crisis there in the widow of her life, that crisis, that outward crisis. brought about that inward need. Because the real, and this is true throughout the Bible. I was just reading, those of you who read table talk, I was thinking about how much what the pastor was saying corresponded to this weekend's section, which was an excerpt from Lloyd-Jones, Dr. Lloyd-Jones. And Lloyd-Jones was talking about Jacob about to meet Esau. You know, after he's gotten his wives and all his livestock. And he's really concerned. Here's Jacob. And he's thinking, I've got all this livestock. I might lose it. I might lose my family. I might lose my life. Esau might take this from me. And then he wrestles with the Lord and he sees that none of that is the issue. He might lose his soul. And all the rest takes its place. His possessions, even his family and his own life takes its place in terms of this question of losing his soul. as he wrestles with the Lord. His inner man is the issue. In Hebrew, heart, we say, denotes the innermost nature of a person. What we are, what we really think, what drives and motivates us. The heart involves our mind, our will, our affections, what we love. It's out of and from this that the mind thinks, that the mouth speaks, that the life is lived. out of the heart. A heart that is watching and praying, a heart that is self-disciplined, a heart that is repentant, will be kept from much sin and will quickly deal with sin inwardly first so that it doesn't come out. I mean, that should be the goal, that we deal with sin more and more inwardly. And it doesn't break out into the speech or the actions. It's at the level of the thought that it's dealt with. Our hearts, who we are inwardly, shape our lives. And all that we think and say and do out of our hearts, whether disciplined and repentant or not, feeds back in and shapes our hearts. You get the dynamic? We're saying that we live out of that. I mean, what we're doing and thinking and saying is coming out of here. But then what we do and say and think comes back to shape this in here. Do you get that? It isn't just all one way. In other words, if you say, well, I have a real hard time speaking kindly to person X. Well, there is a reality of even though you don't necessarily feel like it, speaking kindly to person X, and that will help shape and mold you inwardly. You know, you don't just wait. And so this is always what you have to say when you talk about the heart. We're not saying, I'm not saying, nobody who knows anything is saying, you know, wait until everything is just as you think it should be inwardly. If you wait to serve God till you think everything else is right, you'll never serve God. It's sort of like the old, you know, it's 10 o'clock and the boss calls. Yeah. Where are you? I'm at home in bed. Are you sick? No, you know, I have just promised myself that if I don't feel like getting up and going to work, I'm not going to do it. It's hypocrisy. I'm tired. When the alarm goes off at six, I don't feel like getting up. And so I said, you know, if I don't, I should just stay in bed. Well, I don't think the boss is going to be impressed by that. And I don't think that's because he's a legalist. I think that's because you get up and do it. And in the doing of it, you can gain a heart for it. It's like people who say, well, it's so hard to get out to church or it's so hard to go to church. Well, you know, here's a little newsflash for everybody. Nobody always feels like just zippity doo dah, I'm going to church. I mean, you know, you have all kinds of feelings about this. but you come and as you're coming, you can pray against not wanting to come and you can pray, give me ears to hear and enliven my heart. So, the point is that one's outwards actions and words and all feeds back into the heart and helps shape and mold the heart. Live in discipline and repentance and your heart will be thus trained and shaped. Be wise and live dexterously. I know that's kind of a big word, but the Latin word for right is dexter. I happen to be left-handed, and so, you know, we have to deal with these things. But the Bible speaks of it this way. The word for left in Latin is sinistra. You get the word sinister. from left, and of course you get the word dexterity from the right. So really what this means is, when it's talking about the fool having his heart on his right hand, not his left hand, it's saying this is the hand of skill, this is the hand of power. For most people, I'm actually ambidextrous because I bat right-handed, I do other, so I sort of, I eat this way. So, I mean, some people kind of, you know, are all left-handed. I'm trying to be dexterous over here. That's the hand of skill and power for most people. And it's saying, live that way, walk that way, exercise these things in wisdom, not in weakness or in no exercise. This doesn't get the exercise that this gets for most people. Don't neglect your heart, in other words. Train it, shape it, let it be formed by the disciplines of the Christian life. Trust in Him. First of all, who was the only one with a sweet savor, the only one who was not, unlike us, stinking up the place. He wasn't doing that. Well, folly, we say finally, persisted in, though from a small beginning, is ruinous. Not only molding the heart, but ultimately marking the life. Folly has its beginnings and it molds the heart. And if the heart continues to be molded and shaped, one goes on the left, one goes unskillfully, unthinkingly, just sort of bumbling along, not living intentionally, obediently, then folly comes to mark the life. Verse 3 says, even when a fool walks along the way, he lacks wisdom. And he shows everyone that he's a fool. The one described here in verse 3 is no longer just indulging in a little folly, as verse 1 says. Notice that. Verse 1 says, a little folly. You can repent. You can always repent. Nor is that one just foolish. Now our translation in verse 2 says a fool that has it as possessive, if you note there. But a lot of the translations translate that foolish. So it goes from a little folly, verse 1, to being foolish, more characteristic of the lie, verse 2, to being a fool. I mean, because you engage in some folly, all of us do, doesn't mean you're a fool in the way that verse 3 speaks about it. Verse 3 is speaking about a life marked. By folly. In other words, keep it up. As Cluzel said to the bell boy, and you'll be a bell man. Keep it up. Keep it up. Keep the folly up. Don't repent of the folly. Don't discipline oneself. Walk in the way of a molded foolish heart and you'll be seen as a fool altogether. Ultimately. Neglect the Word. Keep putting off the reading and meditating on it. Don't walk in prayer. Pay no attention in worship or don't come to worship. Don't make much of the means of grace. Just whatever. Watch television. Play on the computer IM, DVDs, games. Goof around. Neglect your proper duties. Pay little attention to what you ought to and that you're a fool will become more and more apparent. fail to have self-discipline and repentance, and you may not see what everyone else does. Notice this pathetic feature of the fool. Even if he's out and about, as it says here, walking along the way, his lack of wisdom isn't seen so much by him as by others. You notice this? The fool walks along the way, he lacks wisdom, and he shows everyone that he is a fool. He shows them. He doesn't say to them. He's not going, I'm a fool! I'm a fool! He's not walking down the street telling everybody he's a fool. He, in fact, may not see it. It may be great news to him. Or he may disbelieve it and say, what are you talking about? You're mistaken. I'm very wise. There are fools who think themselves wise? Oh, yes. They're called politicians. No, I'm not saying that. Yes! Yes! Yes! There are plenty of fools who think themselves wise. Fools, ultimately though, we're told in verse 3, manifest their folly to all because it so comes to mark their life. Their folly comes to mark their life. What a pathetic picture the fool presents. His folly hanging out for all to see. No matter how smart, or able, or good looking, or rich, or powerful, or whatever he may be. All see that he's a fool. How can you keep from broadcasting folly and come to be seen as a fool? Again, trust in Jesus Christ first of all. Recognize how propense we are to it. Recognize we're prone to wonder. Recognize that apart from Him, we will. And trust in the only One who never did anything wrong. and then walk in self-discipline and repentance. Be conscious, self-conscious of your characteristic flesh and do something about it. Employ all the disciplines of grace. Repent of your frequent failings. I mean, the reason that a lot of us don't like to be serious about this is because if you get serious about it, you'll see how much you're failing. You say, I really want to serve the Lord. Well, the first thing you're going to do as you get serious about that is see how much you don't. How far you fall short. Well, this is no good. I mean, it's like I've got to really, really, really be dependent upon God. I mean, I'm willing to be dependent upon God, but not really, really dependent upon God. This is just too much. No, we have to depend upon Him altogether. Humble yourself. to recognize how foolish you are, and do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In other words, deal, we haven't really talked about this aspect, but deal as we're told to in Ephesians 4, 25-32, what the pastor read. Which is to say, don't pounce on the small missteps of others, or rejoice in their big ones. Pray for them, love them. Realize how many faults you have. and how forgiving God is, and thus be forgiving with others as you've been forgiven in Christ. Always remember when you're ready and wanting to pounce on others, how truly liable and deserving you are to be pounced on. And let that shape how you deal with others, recognizing your own sins, weaknesses and temptations. That's really what Ephesians 4 is about. Recognizing truly who you are. And dealing with others in such grace, coming down to that capstone verse, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you. Because when you hear that it doesn't take much, as I was preparing this, I thought, oh my goodness, how can I? It doesn't take much. I mean, I've got a lot and it doesn't even take much. I'm really in trouble. I'm in big trouble if it doesn't take much. But you say, what's the solution? Well, don't really preach the Bible. Yeah, that's what keeps people from looking to Christ. People don't need to hear the Word of God tamed down. And you know, three easy steps to do everything God requires of you. You need to see in the first instance that you can't do what He requires of you. You need to despair and say, Help me. Wash me, Savior, or I die." I mean, why are those lines in hymns? Those lines aren't in hymns. Those kind of things aren't given expression to because people think, well, yeah, I've got just a few problems. Jesus, okay, alright, I'll let You be my Savior, okay? And I guess there's a couple things there that I could use some help with, alright? As opposed to, help! Help! I need You entirely! I'm headed for hell apart from you. Let not the fact that it doesn't take much, in other words, discourage you. Don't let that discourage you, but rather encourage you as to the nature of the Savior that you have and the salvation that you enjoy. This is how deep the salvation goes down, all the way down. we need to be saved all the way down. Deal with those lesser things before they become big, because you have a Savior who has redeemed you in all things and gives you His means to deal with even the smallest bad habit or bit of folly. Let us walk with Him, dying to sin, repenting of sin, and little by little growing in grace, so that folly though in us all will not mold our hearts and mark our lives, but make us humble and utterly dependent on him. Amen. Our father, again, we but touch the hem of the garment as we read your very rich word, how we praise you for it, how it instructs us. Father, may we be those. Who have the disciplines of grace in our lives. who seek not to sin and who repent of our sin, who seek to serve you and who know how much we fail and fall and how much we need you, that we have a perfect standing in justification and that you're working in us in sanctification and that because of adoption, we're always your children, even when we're struggling mightily. Much better to be struggling mightily than to just be numbly walking about. Father, keep us from having hearts molded by folly and then lives marked by such. Grant us, Lord, to trust You and to obey. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.