tremendously in even the acquiring of this piano. So we're very grateful for that. Ecclesiastes chapter 10. Let me preface the getting into the first three verses is where we'll be focusing our attention tonight here in Ecclesiastes. And earlier in our study, if you've been here, we spent three messages talking about what wisdom does in our life. The blessing of having wisdom and of course Solomon could speak from firsthand experience having had The gift of God having had a special blessing that had been bestowed upon him and I don't need to get into that You know the story most of us would be aware of how God worked in Solomon's life when he God appeared to Solomon said he asked for whatever you would and Solomon said I need wisdom God to govern your people and God bestowed upon him great wisdom and beyond wisdom gave him favor and gave him honor and riches and really catapulted his kingdom to the forefront of all the kingdoms in the world at his day. We also know that Solomon stepped away from God. He moved from the position of wisdom and started moving in the realm of folly. Folly, of course, is leaving God behind, leaving God out of your life, making decisions that are devoid of God, making decisions based on the moment rather than the eternality of life or the eternality of the grand picture of things. So as we look at what we're going to look at this evening, he seems to turn his focus and at least this 10th chapter, maybe some going into the 11th chapter, he begins to deal with the aspect or the subject of folly. And I want us to look tonight if we can. And by the way, let me just simply say this. Every person in this world is looked upon either as wise or foolish in someone's eyes. You know some of it is based upon what the value is or the values that the person holds that is assessing your life. For instance, I would simply say to you tonight, it's not considered foolish by the world. Let me say that again, it's not considered foolish by the world to go to the bar and sit all around all Sunday evening and watching football games as they're perhaps put on large screen televisions in that kind of setting and to hear profane cursing and swearing and illicit jokes and all kinds of things like that It's not considered foolish by the world to do that. However, when you tell someone, what did you do on Sunday night? And you at the workplace say, hey, I went to church last night. I heard beautiful music playing a piano. I heard preaching. And the world rolls their eyes at you and said, are you nuts? It's not considered foolish by the world to sit by the hour in front of the TV set and watch stupid programs that have violent, morally bankrupt plots. Programs that have an agenda to change the thinking of the saps that sit in front of them. I mean, there is an agenda that's out there to change the thinking and Hollywood has that agenda. They want to do that. It's not considered foolish to sit there and yet come to church on Wednesday night is to be brainwashed as far as the world is concerned. Well, I'd like to do some brainwashing. I'll guarantee you that. We need some brainwashing in our life. We need to get our lives straightened around. It's not considered foolish by the world to be immoral or to allow your teenage son or daughter to experiment with adult behaviors that should be reserved for marriage. If your teenage daughter gets pregnant, there's always Planned Parenthood. That's the theme of the world. If they end up living with someone before marriage, that's normal. That's healthy in the eyes of the world. You have to place your child in a Christian school or to homeschool them and try to teach them biblical morality and that they're to be virtuous when they come to the wedding altar and they're to be a person of virtue and they should save themselves for marriage and they ought to be married. The world rolls their eyes and says that's ridiculous. We're in a world of value clashing today. And so I know you, you know this, but our world, the one that we live in tonight, the one that's controlled by the God of this world, the devil does not look at us as being wise in many respects. They look at us as being foolish, but that's okay. That's okay. Because really their opinion of us is irrelevant. I really don't care. I suppose we we say that I mean, I guess we all care about what people think about us Nobody wants to us to think of you have to have the thought. Well, man, that person's an idiot That person's a fool But quite frankly if I have to choose between what the world thinks of me and what God thinks of me And if other world says well, you're foolish and God says that's okay. I look at you as being wise. That's okay. I because really the world doesn't matter in that equation what does matter is what God thinks about us so I want you to notice please, Solomon opens up this section on foolish behavior and gives us some general statements about what folly does and I want you to notice there are three things, there are three thoughts about folly here in the first three verses and we'll take each one of them, each verse has one and we'll take each one of them and let's just dig into it tonight Ecclesiastes chapter 10 in verse number 1 the Bible says dead flies caused the ointment of the apothecary To send forth a stinking saver So doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor Wise man's heart is in his is at his right hand, but a fool's heart at his left. I Also when he that is a fool walketh by the way his wisdom faileth him and he saith to everyone that he is a fool So there are three specific things about what wisdom does or what folly does here in this passage. Let's bow our heads together in prayer and let's ask the Lord to bless our study here tonight and our preaching. Father, thank you for this evening and another opportunity for the church to meet. And Father, for us to gather at your feet for a little while and glean from the wisdom that we find in your Bible. And Lord, I do pray tonight that you would penetrate our hearts. Lord, we need your presence. We need your power. We need to see clearly tonight, Lord. We live in such a world of such mixed up values. And it's easy for even for those of us who are believers, if we get our eyes off the right thing and put it on the wrong thing, it's easy for us to begin to think and to reason and to even begin to act like the world. So Father, use the message tonight. Help us to see clearly what folly does. Father, help us to determine in our heart that we're going to walk in wisdom. Father, we ask your blessings and we pray you'd use the message to speak to hearts and lives. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Would you notice, please, in verse number one, would you notice, first of all, that foolishness or what I would say a little folly is never a pleasant experience for those that have a good reputation of being good and godly. Think that's really what verse number one is it really speaks to that dead flies He says cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savor So doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor Now Solomon spoke of of the fragrance if you would of a good name in in the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 7 the first part of verse number one He says a good name is better than precious ointment. I We all know that when someone's name is brought up, maybe you're in a conversation and somebody mentions a name and immediately in our mind, we have thoughts. Sometimes they're very positive thoughts, good thoughts, gracious thoughts. We think to ourselves, my, that's a good person. I've said to someone on a number of occasions, talking to other preachers about another preacher. And when the name is brought up of some preacher, we both know, and I say, he's a good man. We may say about someone else. He's a good person. She's a good woman. They're a great mother. That's a great family. They love Christ So there's something to be said about having a good name there's a fragrance if you would a sweetness about that He speaks now the fact that dead flies though caused the ointment of the apothecary and They send a stench to the nostrils of one when it opens that ointment of the apothecary. The apothecary, of course, was a person who knew how to blend spices. really two thoughts that come from the passage here that we should think about and there are two perhaps thoughts of or two ways of taking what Solomon says there are those who believe the apothecary and certainly rightly so was somewhat like a druggist of someone you would go to when you had a prescription you go into the doctor the doctor says hey you need certain things to make you well so you went down to the pharmacy we all do that we see a doctor the doctor says hey you need You need some antibiotics. You need some cough medicine. You need something to help you. So we take that prescription and we ask the pharmacist to fill it and we come back maybe an hour later and it's ready to go and we take it home. So the thought here that perhaps the apothecary that's mentioned here could be talking about a man who was given a responsibility to take certain spices, to use certain ingredients, herbs and spices and things to put together remedies or some kind of ointment that would be applied externally. And obviously to to go to a man who would allow a dead fly somehow to get into that mixture The idea is that that that that fly could be deadly it could be toxic. He could so spoil the the Prescription so that if you took it in your body, he could literally destroy you Now the other thought about this apothecary is not that he's a druggist, but he's a man who is given a responsibility of working with certain things and putting certain ingredients together so that when he put them together, it made the most fragrant of smells. I'm not much into perfume. My wife has has migraine headaches, and so strong odors like that, strong smells, even though they may be very lovely to smell, are some things that she kind of has to avoid. And so I get off cheap at Christmas. No Chanel No. 5 for us. But the truth of the matter is, is that, you know, there's some smells, and you walk through the department store, and sometimes there's a mixture of it, and it's almost overwhelming. Some of it's almost, because it blends all those smells, sometimes it's like, that smells good, I gotta get out of here, it's too much. And so when we think about this apothecary, and by the way, the Bible speaks of of this in Exodus chapter 30 in verse number 35 when God said to Moses I want you to put together the tabernacle and he said I I'm gonna give you a special blend of smells that can be used by the apothecary here's what he says in Exodus 3035 and thou shalt make it a perfume a confection after the art of the apothecary tempered together pure and holy and here's what God said about that smell he said I don't want anyone to replicate that It's only for my house and for my work. I don't want anyone else to take that smell and use it for themselves. I want it to be distinct for me. Now either way, that which is helpful or had a smell or an aroma is now damaged because what the thought is here in verse number one, those dead flies get into that beautiful ointment, that great gracious smell and they spoil it, causes it to have a stench instead of a beautiful smell. It's spoiled and now it doesn't smell good. It smells rotten. It doesn't serve its purpose. It's defiled. The point is that either way, either the medicine or the perfume had been helpful, had a sweet aroma, that which is damaged is now spoiled, its purpose is ruined, it becomes toxic, it could be deadly, it could cause people to be turned away. Now, let me give you a practical aspect of what I believe Solomon is talking about here in verse number 1. Obviously, the thought, the point, the application is this, is that God expects those of us who name His name to have a sweet fragrance about our life. We're to walk in this world in such a way that even the unsaved world, while they may not understand us, they certainly can't get a hold of something in our life. They can't look at us, and while they may think that we're foolish for being in church on Sunday night, and it may not add up on their value scale, they certainly can't say there's something wrong with that other than that you've got too much religion. But there is something wrong with the fact that those of us who name the name of Christ and have a good testimony at some point in time in our life, we take a U-turn from God and we go out into the world and we do something that brings reproach to God's name and causes those folks who at one time were blessed by us, who are now no longer blessed, but in turn they say, well, if that's what a Christian does, I knew they'd end up being that way. Let me help you understand that, please. Let me show you this aspect in David's life. Go with me to the book of 2 Samuel, chapter number 12. You're familiar with the story, there's no question we all are familiar with the story of David's fall and his turn from God at a point in his life. And at a point when, after David thought everything was settled, he'd gotten away with his immorality, he'd married Bathsheba, a child was on the way, and of course, The child now has been born and David thought everything was fine and all of a sudden David can't sleep at night and at a point God sends the prophet Nathan to confront David for his ungodliness and immorality. And I want you to notice something that Nathan says to David, please, in chapter 12 and verse number 14. He's confronted David. David has confessed his sin. He said, yeah, you're right, I have sinned. I've sinned against the Lord. And Nathan responds, Nathan said to David in verse number 13, The end of the Lord also hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die. Look at verse 14, How be it? Nevertheless, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. I believe that what God was saying to David is this, is David, You know that by this sin, you know now because of what you've done, I have to bring judgment upon you because if I don't judge you, if I don't judge you and deal with this sin, then those who hate me, those who are not with me, will blaspheme and move further away from me. Too bad David didn't follow his own instruction as recorded in Psalms 101, verses 2 and 3. He said, I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. Listen, O will wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. Listen, I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes. I hate the work of them that turn aside. It shall not cleave unto me. I think to myself, David, if you'd have listened to your own admonition, if you'd not put something in front of your eyes, if you'd have turned away when you saw that which was not right, if you hadn't lingered there, if you hadn't began to dwell on it, David, it would have never come to this, and you wouldn't have to have the judgment of God on your life, and it wouldn't be a black mark, and it wouldn't be the besmirch. And I gotta tell you, as I think about God's people across the globe, and I think about Christians that I've known through the years, I think to myself of how many at one time had a great testimony They lived for Christ. Their life was pure. When you thought about them, it wasn't a bad stench, it was a sweet smelling savor. But somehow along life's way, they began to move in a wrong direction and folly began to creep into their life. And now when that word or that name is mentioned, it's not a sweetness. It's like, oh my goodness. Oh, how we wish we could go back and sometimes change it. See, the problem is when we begin to head those directions, we don't think about where it's going to end and how it's going to hurt us. Once again in this series, I point out that Solomon might have been giving us a running commentary on his own life. Solomon's point is well taken, is applied to our lives. We as God's people need to live in such a way that we bring honor and glory to Christ. Can I tell you that Ephesians speaks to us tonight when it talks about us as God's people walking circumspectly. You say, Preacher, what does that word mean? It means carefully. You and I, when we're out in every moment of our life, we can never take a vacation from God. We can never think, well, you know, it's just a time to take a holiday. I don't have to really think about God today. I don't have to really worry about how I live today. I'm on vacation. No, you're not. The Bible says we're bought with a price. We're to glorify God in our bodies seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. There are no holidays. You can't walk away from your Christian testimony. You and I need to choose our steps carefully in this world. Can I tell you why? Because people are watching you. I can't tell you how many times I've been places where I thought, my goodness, I'm in a place where nobody would have any idea who I am. And I have somebody walk up and say, are you Kevin Folger? I'm just simply saying you and I have to understand that our lives are being watched. You may have witnessed to someone at work. You may have talked to someone about their soul. You may have witnessed to a family member. It may be a neighbor. And I gotta tell you, when people, when God works in people's lives because of our witness, you know what they begin to do? They begin to watch us. See if it's real. See if there's a trueness to that relationship. And so we're to walk circumspectly. My question is tonight, what is your life smell like tonight? Can I say that again? What's the aroma or the fragrance of your life tonight? You, like Solomon, can have a sweet smell of heaven on your life. I hope you do. Hope the fragrance of God is all over you. I want it to be all over my life. I want when people think, when they think about my life, I want them to think that there's a man who walks with God. I want to have a clear testimony, a good testimony. Can I ask you something? Sir, ma'am, my brother, sister in Christ, what fly is buzzing around you tonight that wants to land and destroy your testimony? Is it pornography? Illicit thoughts? Immoral behavior? Covetousness? What sin are you dabbling in or thinking about that might end up becoming toxic in your life? Or causing God to have to judge you harshly or maybe take someone out of your life like David that you love dearly. I'd hate to think that I got away from God at some point in my life and God would have to deal with my children because of me. Or one of my grandchildren. I'm telling you tonight that we need to understand that God doesn't play games. We don't really get a choice. Once we sign up, we're in. Oh yeah, you can choose the direction of your life. You can choose which way you go. Yes, you can make some decisions, but I want to tell you something. Once you're saved, you don't belong to yourself anymore. We belong to God, and as such, He has bought us and paid for us. I've got to tell you, we have a fairly expensive piece of furniture up here, if somebody doesn't know how to play it. If I walked over to that piano, I've got to tell you, it wouldn't sound like Tom Solich tonight. I get pretty perturbed, quite honestly, if I walked in here and some little kid was up there on that piano and he was crawling all over the top of it and walking on the strings and beating on the piano. I'd be pretty upset about it. Why? Because that's an expensive piece of furniture and it's an expensive instrument and it ought to be reverenced and it ought to be handled by those who know how to play it. Why would we let someone dink around on it? Can I tell you something? You're more precious than that piano. Your life's been purchased by God, and as such, you and I don't have a right just to live any way we want to. We are to be a fragrant aroma in the nostrils of God, in the nostrils of this world. We are to smell like God smells. I'll tell you, you start messing around with folly, and it won't be long till the stench of the world's all over you. I want you to notice secondly, please, in verse number two, folly or foolishness comes out of the heart that's leaning in a wrong direction. Verse two says, a wise man's heart is at his right hand, but a fool's heart is at his left. Now, when Solomon makes that statement, he's not talking about the fact that if you're foolish, that your heart is on the left side of your body. And if you're wise, it's on the right side of your body. Let me try to help you understand what he's saying. In the ancient days, to be seated on the right hand spoke of a position of honor and blessing. You know, don't you, tonight, that the Bible says that when Jesus ascended, the Bible says that he is seated at the right hand of the Father. It's a position of honor. It's a position of glory. It's a position that's to be reverenced. Jesus parable the sheep and the goat judgment in Matthew chapter 25 when the king comes and establishes his kingdom and he determines who's gonna come into the kingdom it says he sets his sheep on his right hand and his goats on the left and the sheep are ushered into the kingdom and the goats are sent away into everlasting punishment this is interesting in Webster's 1828 dictionary the word sinister The word sinister, it comes from a Latin word which means weak or defective. Listen to the first definition that's found in Webster's 1828 dictionary on the word sinister. Left or on the left hand. Or on the side of the left hand, opposed to dexter or right. Now, again, when the Bible uses heart in this context, it's a reference to the part of us that governs our life, the part of us that thinks it's the seat of our emotion, our intellect, our will. It's where we make decisions that choose how we walk in this world. So wise man's heart leads him to do honorable and right things, and a fool's heart is sinister, it's dishonorable, leading him to do that which is wrong. You know, the Bible tells us in Proverbs 4.23, keep your heart with all diligence. Host the guard at your heart. Don't take your heart lightly. You wonder why this preacher gets all over you and gets up here and rants and raves and foams at the mouth and gets upset and says to you, look, be careful what you watch on television. Be careful what you put in your ears. What kind of music you listen to? Be careful about the eye gate. Why? Because I want to tell you, your heart is governed by those things. And you bring foolishness into your life. You let the world's music and the world's message with the world's music beat a sound and a pattern. And you're not going to be thinking about the sweetness and the fragrance of God in your life. You're going to be thinking about the nonsense of the world. Leave your wife, leave your kids, go out and live any way you want to because you're the most important person in the world. That's foolishness. You're not the most important person in the world. God is. We're to bring honor and glory to him. So we have to be careful. We need to guard our heart. Keep your heart with all diligence because out of it are the issues of life. The Bible tells us our heart is deceitful. Jeremiah 17, nine, the heart is deceitful above all things. Desperately wicked. Who can know it? Here's my point. We all have a propensity in our heart to lean to the left. I'm not saying you're a left-leaning liberal, but isn't that true? Isn't that funny? We talk about liberals being on the left and conservatives being on the right. Well, I'll stand over here with the right guys, I'll tell you that. We're obviously speaking the realm of politics. But we all have the propensity in our hearts and in our lives to go the wrong direction. Look, if you don't guard your heart, if you're not careful about your life, you're going to make some wrong turns in your life. Our hearts have to be changed. You know, we look around the world, we wonder why the world's doing what it's doing. Can I tell you this? The reason they're doing what they're doing is because they're lost, they're unsafe. They don't have God in their heart. I'm all for laws that govern us, but I'm telling you that one of the reasons why laws don't work in this society Why we're we're living in in opposition to laws that were written on the books back in the 1800s because in the 1800s people had God in their heart and They understood biblical morality and they understood that this book was a standard by which our lives were to be governed now We're living in a world. It's a Bible It's an archaic old book filled with archaic values. Get up to speed, would ya? This is 2010. You can't live by 1800s. Oh yeah, we're an enlightened society. We have come a long way, baby. And it's a wrong direction. We all have propensity to go that way, but listen to me. God can change a heart. If you're sitting here tonight and you're lost, you're not certain of your salvation, you don't know that if you die, you're going to be with God in heaven. I thank God for Tom's testimony, how God worked in his life. And it's amazing how God works in people's lives. And God uses people that, listen, the sweet fragrance of God in people's lives along the way. And you and I are one of those tools in this world. So people's hearts can be changed. They can repent of their sin. They can come to Christ. They can be forgiven. A wise person, a saved person will guard their heart and allow God's Word and His Spirit to examine their heart. They'll not foul their heart, but they will trust Him with their heart. Listen to me, your heart not only can be changed, but your heart needs to stay connected. There ought to be a part of you that desires this book. Do you? I don't want you to answer audibly tonight, but I want to ask you a question. When was the last time you really just got alone with God and opened up the Bible and said, Lord, I'm not just reading my verse for the day, but I want you to speak to me from your book. I want to hear from you. I got to go out in the world today. I got to go out and do business in the world. I want the fragrance of heaven to be on my life. And before I can do that, I've got to be in this book. We get on our knees and we cry out to God and say, God, would you clean out my life and get rid of the clutter and make me a vessel of honor. You got to stay connected. By the way, you need preaching. So do I. You need to listen for the voice of God to be yielding and don't quench his spirit in your life. Hearts can be wise and lead us in a good and right way and cause others to take notice of us. It's vitally important that we walk in a right way. I want you to look very quickly with me, please, at 1 Samuel 18. I want you to notice something about David's life before he got to the point of making a wrong decision. I want you to notice something that the Bible says in 1 Samuel 18. David's just a young man. He's spent time on the backside of the desert with the sheep and keeping his father's flock. Chapter 17, of course, he faces a giant and God gives him a great victory. Now he's conscripted to be a part of Saul's army, and the Bible says in verse number 5, And David went out with us, whoever Saul sent him, and behaved himself wisely. And Saul sent him over the men of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul's servants. Look if you would at verses 14 and 15, And David behaved himself wisely in all his ways, and the Lord was with him. Wherefore when Saul saw that he behaved himself wisely he was afraid of him and then look if you would please at verse number 30 the same chapter Then the princes of the Philistines went forth and it came to pass After they had went forth that David behaved himself more wisely than all the servants of sauce. Listen so that his name was much set by You don't have to be a fool in this world you and I can be wise in this world I So much so that the world sets up and takes notice because the hand of God is upon our life and the favor of God is upon our life Would you notice the final thing here in Ecclesiastes chapter 10 and look at verse number three, please The Bible says yea also when he that is a fool walketh by the way his wisdom faileth him And he sayeth to everyone that he is a fool Not only obviously is that a little folly and foolishness causes great harm to those who are known for wisdom and honor. And not only, according to verse number two, is, you know, the heart of us determines kind of the direction of our life, and we have a tendency to lean in the wrong direction. I want you to notice, please, that it's not hard to spot a fool. You can tell by their walk. Solomon warned his son in Proverbs, I want to read a few verses, if I may, and I want you to listen carefully from Proverbs. There's a father speaking to his son, and I want you to listen specifically for the thought about direction of life. In Proverbs chapter 4, verses 14 to 16, the Bible says, Solomon speaking, enter not, listen, into the path of the wicked. Do you understand there is a path of the wicked? So it says, enter not into the path of the wicked, go not in the way of evil men. There is a way of evil men. Avoid it pass not by it turn from it pass away for they sleep not except they have done Mischief and their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fail We have police officers in our church and some of them work the night shift and you know what? That's when a lot of nonsense goes on in the world. I Mentioned a few weeks ago. I was out called out early in the morning to go to the hospital because of a death It was 2 30 in the morning. I was driving down Lorraine Avenue going towards Fairview Park Hospital. I could not believe Sunday morning 2 30 in the morning how much nonsense was going on in the world? You know why because there's a path of the wicked It's a path of the ungodly God's people that are turned from it to keep away from it He spoke of a simple one, void of understanding, going in a wrong direction, being wooed by a seductive woman that represents sin and the end result of that path in Proverbs chapter 7. Listen to what he says in verses 21 to 27. With her much fair speech she caused him to yield. With the flattering of her lips she forced him. Listen, he goeth after her straightway as an ox goeth to the slaughter. or as a fool to the correction of stocks till a dart strike through his liver and a bird hasteneth to the snare and knoweth not that it is for his life. Hearken unto me now, therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thy heart decline to her ways. Go not astray in her path, for she hath cast down many wounded. Many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. You understand the pathway here? There's a direction that's spoken of in these passages. David had an experience with a man by the name of Nabal. You remember that experience? David and his men had been a wall for Nabal. See, in David's day, those people that had great flocks, they either had to hire guards to watch over their flocks as they were being taken care of by their grazing out in the pasture, or they had to perhaps be susceptible to marauders, to thieves. I thought it was quite interesting. I was speaking to Brother Harrison, who was here this morning, the book man. I was out there looking at Bibles, because preachers always like Bibles. You can never have too many of them if you're a preacher. It's like, you know, handguns. God's weapon, you know. And we were talking about a certain Bible that I liked, and he said, it's amazing how many of those have been stolen off my table. I said, what? People steal Bibles? He said, you'd be surprised. So, I guess Brother Harrison's going to have to hire some iron guards to stand around his table when he comes to churches of all places. But listen to me, so David and his men became a wall to Nabal. David hears the Nabals slaughtering sheep and David thinks, well, you know, we've been kind to this man. We've not taken anything from him. We've been a wall of protection for him. I think we'll go and see if Nabal will give us a little something for our duty. And so David sends a couple of men, being his emissaries, and Nabal rails on them. He says, who is David that I should give him anything? And it implies that David's a runaway and he's not to be respected. David gets mad. Now, I want you to think for just a moment. If David follows through with what he wants to do here, he could make one of the greatest mistakes of his life. He wants to go mop up Nabal's house. And I mean that physically with fisticuffs, but he wants to slay everybody. Every male among them he wants to destroy. Nabal has a woman, a wife, her name is Abigail. She's a wise woman. By the way, ladies, every man needs one. We need all the help we can get. Abigail realizes she can't do anything for her husband. She can intercede on behalf of her husband for David. She packs up a bunch of stuff, a bunch of food, and rides to meet David. David, his men are on their way. They're making a beeline to Nabal. They're getting ready to slaughter him when she intercepts them. And she begins to speak. And I'm just gonna paraphrase rather than read the whole passage, but here's what she says. She says, David, you don't need to do this. You're too wise for this. And I know this had to be encouraging to David after years of running. She said, I know that God's going to elevate you. Someday you'll be king and all those that are against you will be slung out of God's sling. She was saying, God will take care of your adversaries. Don't worry about it. And you don't want to get to the throne at some point in your life and look back and see this black mark and this mistake that you made in this foolish direction if you follow through with it. And David praises that woman, but I think it's interesting. She calls her husband, and I think she was right when she said it. God obviously records it for us, but she calls her husband a foolish man. Do you know that ten days after they had that meeting that God dealt with Nabal, and took his life. Now here's my point, Nabal was a fool and lived his life so that all beheld him knew that he was one. David almost did a foolish thing because he let his heart burn within him trying to make vengeance for himself. Abigail was like a breath of fresh air and sweet smelling fragrance that was sent by the Lord into David's life at that moment. Now, here's the truth that we really just need to get a hold of, and we're finished. In the eyes of God tonight, you and I are either moving in a wise right direction, or we're heading here in a wrong direction, your left, my right. So, my question is, are you leaning to the left tonight? Do you have a testimony of godliness, but there are some flies that are buzzing around your life that want to land in the perfume and cause a stinking savor and become toxic? When people look at your life tonight, can they tell that you're a wise person or a fool by what they see? I don't mean to make excuses for teenagers, but sometimes I think we look at teenagers and we forget that we were one at one time. I did a lot of dumb things when I was a teenager. And I'm not, I think young people can be wise and they should be wise. But I can give a little bit more to a teenager than I can to an adult. Because an adult ought to know better, and teenagers ought to know better as well, but sometimes they're just dumb. And that's no excuse, kids, no excuse to go home and do dumb things. and go home and say, the preacher said I was dumb. So I should get away with this. They don't need help. They do that on their own. But the point that I'm trying to make tonight is this, is that people tell something about your life. You have the fragrance of heaven on you tonight. That should be the desire of our heart that we'd smell like God tonight. It needs to be dripping all over us. I certainly don't want to smell like the world. Because to me, that doesn't smell good at all. There's nothing pleasurable about the smell of the world. I suppose that when that prodigal son came home, he hadn't had a time to get a bath, but he still had the stench of the world. But you know what? Because he was coming home, his father received him. And he'd already changed the direction of his life. Coming home. We sing that song, I'm coming home, but I think there's an old song. I wish some of our folks would sing it here. Maybe they have. Maybe it's been a while, but it's an old song. I talk about being on a journey and father's arms around us and I'm going home. I'm heading home. There's something about home. Some people have drifted away from home spiritually. Moving in the wrong direction. You just need to get back to where you know it's blessed, and the fragrance of God is upon your life, and the foolishness of the world is put behind you, and the wisdom of God becomes the wisdom of your life. Solomon gives us some good things to look at here. And he could speak from firsthand experience, and I suppose all of us can to some extent. But when it comes to our life, we get one chance to really do it right. I don't want there to be black marks. By the way, if there are some, God forgives. He does. Sometimes we have to bear the scars from that, but God does forgive us, and He accepts us, and as far as He's concerned, when you've confessed it, it's gone, it's forsaken, as far as the East is from the West. But that doesn't mean there aren't some repercussions that you have to deal with in life. It's a whole lot better not to go that path than to have to go that way and then turn around. I'm just simply saying God can help us to stay on the right path, moving in the right direction, having a fragrance of God upon our life, and the world and those who watch us can know there's a wise person. Let's bow our heads together in prayer.