Ecclesiastes 10

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Some of you are old enough to know what a dunce cap is. How many people know what a dunce cap is? Okay, next question.
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How many people wore a dunce cap? Oh, okay, there's a couple that have admitted to wearing a dunce cap.
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Well, it's fascinating because dunce caps started off as something good. You know, in the 50s here in America, they turned into something that meant you were disruptive or unruly or somehow you were disobedient and you'd have to stand in the corner with this funnel hat on that had a
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D and you were stigmatized as the dunce. But they started off with a
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Catholic theologian, John Duns Scotus, and he thought to himself as a
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Franciscan priest studying all kinds of things and going to Paris and Cologne, getting his
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PhD, that maybe there was something to those wizards with the canonical hat and maybe there was a reason why one should wear one.
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And he thought and theorized that maybe the shape of a pointed hat would somehow funnel knowledge down into the brain, and it's true.
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So he began to wear those hats and so did his disciples. Fast forward to the
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Renaissance a little bit, they realized with the Enlightenment thinking and science and everything, that's just really stupid, that's foolish, and so instead of a symbol of something that made people smart, it was flipped around, something that makes people look like a dunce, the equivalent of a red letter
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A in Scarlet Letter. Well, today we're gonna look at a chapter in the Bible, and my main goal is for you to say to yourself,
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I don't wanna be a dunce. To be more specific, I don't wanna be a fool.
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Please turn your Bibles to Ecclesiastes 10, and it's about foolish people. In the context of the literature that we're in, this kind of genre in the
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Bible, it's called wisdom literature, and of course, you see the parlay between back and forth wisdom, foolishness, wise living, foolish living, and so today we come to what a fool does, what a fool acts like, what a fool thinks about, and we, of course, don't wanna be fools.
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And so really, as we look at this chapter, we're gonna ask the question, am I a fool? I don't mean, am
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I a fool, the pastor? I want you to ask yourself the question, are you a fool? And maybe that's a good review of Ecclesiastes chapters one through nine.
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If you're new here, we just go through a book of the Bible, verse by verse, section by section, chapter by chapter.
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Last time we were in chapter nine, and now we're in chapter 10. Probably a good review of one through nine would be, am
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I a fool? Right, I could review the Bible, Ecclesiastes one through nine this way.
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Do I know the meaning of life is found in the giver of life, not in life itself? Do I fear
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God? Do I know this life is fleeting? Do I know this life under the sun in this world is sin -tainted?
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Do I know that God gives me good gifts to enjoy, even in difficult times? And a fool doesn't recognize those things, and we want to be wise.
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A fool doesn't know that those who love God, that all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose.
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A fool doesn't know that those who God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.
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A fool doesn't know those whom He predestined, He also called, and those whom He called,
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He also justified, and those who He justified, He also glorified. A fool doesn't know if God is for us, who can be against us.
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A fool doesn't know that God didn't spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all. A fool doesn't know it's
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God who justifies. A fool doesn't know the one who condemns is the Lord Jesus. A fool doesn't know that neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate believers from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
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A fool doesn't know those truths in Romans 8. And as we come to chapter 10, you say, how do you know it's about foolishness?
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Did you know in this chapter, nine times in the English, it either has folly, fool, fools, or foolishness.
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You can see them right there. Verse 1, can you spot the word folly? Verse 2, fools. Ecclesiastes 10 .3,
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two times, fool and a fool. Chapter 10, verse 6, folly.
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Verse 12, fool. Verse 13, foolishness. Verse 14, fool.
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Verse 15, fool. Guess what? This is a chapter about sacrificial giving.
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Of course not. It's about foolishness. And we don't want to be foolish.
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And the way this is arranged is interesting. If you have a modern Bible, you probably see that chapter 9's margins kind of look like it makes a narrative.
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It's all bunched together. And in chapter 10, you see all the white space there. Because we're moving from kind of a discourse to a bunch of Proverbs.
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If you open your Bible, and you don't have to, to Proverbs, you're going to see the same kind of spacing because now we have what's seen as a white space.
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It seems to be a bunch of random Proverbs. Ecclesiastes is preaching. That's what Ecclesiastes means, the preacher.
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And he's preaching, don't be foolish, be wise, and now we come to a bunch of Proverbs about foolishness that we might avoid.
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It seems like they're just kind of a variety. It seems like it's just a bunch of things there jammed together.
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One writer said, although the apparent lack of organization may be frustrating to readers, it is a lot like life itself, in which one thing often runs into another without any obvious point of connection.
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So the writer's saying, almost like life, we have all these things jammed in here together. That's kind of like life.
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But the overall thought here should make you ask the question, not just in front of people, but the
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Lord God, am I acting foolishly or am I acting wisely? Here's a little insight.
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It's easy for us to say, this is right and this is wrong. This is something that's morally good, this is morally evil.
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This is something that's upright and good and pleasant, and this is just sleazy sin.
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But it's a little more nuanced when it comes to wisdom and foolishness. It's not just right and wrong. There's a certain style and attitude that you have to have when you come to, what's the right timing?
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What's the right thought process? How do I act wisely and not foolishly? And I think this chapter, dear congregation, will help you today.
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It's certainly helped me. Before we get into the outline, let me remind you of three things that are initially important and worthwhile reminders.
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Number one, this preacher, this Solomon the preacher, wants us to pursue wisdom, but not ultimately wisdom because wisdom incarnate is the
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Lord Jesus. It's not necessarily all about wisdom. It's about who Jesus is.
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And I would appeal to 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30, and because of Him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the
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Lord. What we're after is we're not just after sheer wisdom. I mean, the world can be wise. We're after the mind of Christ.
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We're after how to think like Jesus, the true man, the perfect man thought.
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Another reminder is that when we see some commands in the section, we receive them as good gifts from a father.
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We're Christian people, and God is giving us the law now as children, not to condemn us, not to kick us out of the family, but what we call the third use of the law, and that use is to guide us and to give
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Him glory. And lastly, I think it's important. And then if you're here today and you're not a believer, you're the ultimate fool.
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You're the ultimate fool. The Bible says of you who are not trusting in Jesus, that you claim to be wise,
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Romans 1, but you became a fool, and you exchanged the glory of the immortal
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God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
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And there's fruit to this unbelief and foolishness. Therefore, God gave you up to the lust of the hearts, to impurity, dishonoring your bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature, probably themselves, probably you if you're an unbeliever, rather than the creator who is blessed forever, amen.
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The ultimate fool says there's no God. And so if you're here today and you're hearing this sermon and you're not a
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Christian, yes, you're a fool, but it's not too late because God is gracious to foolish people, gracious to unbelievers.
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Matter of fact, he sent his son to go rescue people just like you. And when I read in Romans chapter four, there's a couple of foolish people rescued by God himself.
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Daniel was, excuse me, David was one of them and Abraham was another. And God proclaims in his word to foolish people who are unbelievers, who trust in the risen savior, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.
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Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Would you like to be forgiven?
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Trust in the Lord Jesus. I hope that was translated yes. Yes. Ecclesiastes 10, here comes the outline.
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It's quick, it's bullet -like, it's staccato. We're gonna get through this whole chapter today. The outline is entitled, am
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I a fool? I don't mean, am I a fool? I want you to ask yourself the question, am I a fool?
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Okay, you could put it this way, am I a dunce? Number one, there's gonna be a series of questions.
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Do I know that a little sin can cause great destruction? Do I know a little sin can cause a lot of problems?
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Do I understand that sin is to be avoided and to be given a wide berth?
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Or do I think, you know what, I can just inch in close, I can be an antinomian, it's under the blood, it doesn't matter what
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I do. Let's see what Ecclesiastes 10 says, verse one, very picturesque.
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Dead flies make the perfumer's ointment give off a stench.
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So a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. A literal reading, one man said, a painfully literal reading reads this way.
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Flies of death, it makes to stink and bubble out oil of the mixer of a precious thing from wisdom, from honor, a little folly.
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What? That is painful. A little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.
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And you know, this is kind of linked. Do you see it in verse 18 of the previous chapter? A little bit of foolishness destroys a lot of wisdom.
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It says the same thing in the last chapter. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.
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And so in chapter 10, verse one, he's trying to say, you know what? It's good to be wise, but be careful of foolishness because you can be pretty wise and then catastrophe can happen and you can just let sin into your life and destroy a whole life, at least temporarily on earth.
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I mean, all of a sudden you think, okay, I've got pure water, it's tap water, it's filtered water. How much arsenic am
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I gonna have to add into that before it's not good water? What kind of contamination would that cause?
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So you've got some wonderful ointment back in the day or perfume, and now you've got a bunch of dead flies that make it stink.
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I mean, we can even make it more graphic and stuff. You go outside and you see, what do you see, kids?
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If you have some old meat laying there. I remember I was riding my bicycle one time and somebody had thrown out of their window,
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I guess, a big turkey that you'd buy at the store to cook. It didn't have feathers or anything on it.
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And I went over to it, I'm like, what in the world is that? And I kind of just pushed it and kicked it over. And all of a sudden you just, what do you see?
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Just imagine, just have a few little maggots in your lunch today. I mean, okay, just one.
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What's the least amount of maggots you could put in your lunch today and still enjoy it? Cheers.
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That's what he's talking about. So you live your life of wisdom and you want to do the right thing. And he's warning you, finish well.
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I mean, you can do a lot of bad things at the end, but you don't have time to kind of just ruin a whole life. One rotten apple spoils the whole bushel.
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And one sin of foolishness can cause great harm to a person.
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The contrast is between a little bit and a lot, and that little bit can affect a lot. I mean, we live in cancel culture today.
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And if you've said one thing bad in the past, you're canceled. But there's kind of a biblical cancel culture here.
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Not of the world, don't get me wrong. Not of what's being promoted by the media, don't get me wrong. But it's kind of like, you know what?
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There's a good name that can be lost and canceled if we're just foolish, sinfully foolish.
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I mean, the Lord Jesus doesn't even talk about, it's just a little yeast that leavens the whole lump, just a little bit.
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So what's the conclusion? I'm gonna get as close to sin as I can. I'm just gonna snuggle up to sin as best
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I can. You know, it's kind of like when people are dating, they're like, how close can we go without having sin?
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No, the fool says that. The wise person says, I'm gonna give that a wide berth. I'm gonna stay as pure as possible.
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Jesus said, watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, even when it comes to false teaching.
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Well, I only kind of like watching TBN once in a while, and kind of do this, and I kind of like to read all the bad stuff.
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And be careful, false teaching like Pharisees, it can permeate.
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I mean, did you ever see the Lord Jesus snuggle up to sin? How close can
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I get to temptation? You saw Him, as it were, come close to sinners, that's true.
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What is He trying to do here? Big picture. Okay, here's the big picture. Maybe the key point of all the sermon.
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Your wisdom and wise living isn't the Savior, because you can be wise, wise, wise, wise, wise, and then there's some kind of fall.
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We're not gonna trust in our wisdom, ultimately. We wanna live wise lives, but we have to put our trust in the
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One who is perfectly wise. That's the key point. Solomon is saying, a little bit of sin can cause a lot of damage.
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Think Adam, right? It's like, okay, what was he thinking? Therefore, Romans 5, just as sin came into the world, through one man, you wanna know what's the cause for all this?
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Adam's sin, one little dead fly in the ointment, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sin.
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Of course, thankfully, Romans goes on, but the free gift is not like the trespass, for if many died through the one man's trespass, how much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man,
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Jesus, abounded for many? Put positively, a little sin can affect a life, be careful.
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And by the way, a righteous life of 33 years can affect a lot of people too, can it not? Absolutely.
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I don't think Solomon ever forgot the smell of those dead flies and those maggots in that perfume.
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Just one little whiff of that. Somehow smells carry with you, don't they? I mean, the positive smells, you wake up, you smell the campfire, you smell the coffee, you're thankful for the people that got up at 4 a .m.
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to do all that so you could sleep in till 4 .15. Right, the rule of camping, whoever's up first, everybody else gets up.
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I don't think he ever forgot that smell. And when I was a kid, we would drive in Omaha past the stockyards.
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I can remember that smell. Am I a fool?
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Ask yourself the question, do I know a little sin can cause great destruction? And we, of course, as a church say yes, so we wanna be careful.
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Second question, am I a fool? Question two, under am
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I a fool? Do other people, do wise people think that I'm a fool?
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Verses two and three. Is it self -evident to others that I am a fool? Do other people know it?
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It's easy to see. I'll prove it, verses two and three. A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left.
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Even when the fool walks on the road, he lacks sense, and he says to everyone with neon signs, with the biplane that's going across the beach with a big banner, it doesn't say drink
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Red Bull, it says I'm a fool. He says to everyone that he's a fool.
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Notice what he's doing in verse two, a wise man's heart inclines him to the right.
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This is not like placement of a heart. We all have our heart in the same place unless there's an abnormality.
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Heart is your kind of master controller. Your heart is your mission control center. We think in the
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West, our heart is our emotions. No, no, think like mission control center. Think Proverbs four, keep your heart with all diligence from from it flows the springs of life.
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We wanna make sure our heart is kept right. It's the center of affection.
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It's the center of thinking. And we wanna make sure since out of the heart all kinds of things flow, what flows out of the wise heart versus the foolish heart.
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I'll read the text again. A wise man's heart, of course, ladies too, inclines him to the right.
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What do you mean the right? What if I'm left -handed? I'm offended.
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You mean the right? I mean, think about when you're driving. Go to the right means take a right.
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Go to the left means take a left. Am I on the right path? I'm going straight, right?
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Right. Right hand, power, authority, majesty.
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Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father. So and so is my right hand man. The man and the wife get married here and he walks her out with his right hand.
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You think, yeah, but I'm left -handed. And they even say left -handed translated into Latin is where we get the word sin in it.
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I'm a minister. I'm offended. How many people are left -handed here? Wow, and you're proud of it.
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Here's what one commentator said. Left -handed people should not be offended by the wording of this proverb.
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Though doubtless some oversensitive souls are. When the
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Son of Man comes in glory and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations and He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
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And He will place the sheep on His right and the goats on the left.
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He's essentially saying, has nothing to do with left -handed, right -handed. He's saying, go on the right path.
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Go on the straight path. You could ask yourself the question, what path am
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I going? What are my habits? How am I acting? Am I moving in the right direction?
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Am I headed toward temptations? Am I headed away from temptations? Am I going in the right direction when it comes to discipleship and denying self?
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Or am I going the way of the left, the way of the wrong way, the way of the fool? And when I do, it's a promotion for everyone.
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Verse three, even when the fool walks on the road, he lacks sense and he says to everyone that he's a fool.
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I mean, what is the point? It's obvious. Kim and I were in the San Francisco airport the other day and they have like a little museum section now so you can kill time there.
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And they had a bunch of opera costumes from the San Francisco opera.
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And some I didn't find very interesting, some I did. And the one that I found the most interesting one was the costume that had kind of the clown, kind of had the joker.
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It was the court jester. And when you put that uniform on, everybody knows you're the joker, you're the jester.
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And when you act foolishly, everybody knows. That's what Solomon is saying. I mean, the fool doesn't know it, but everybody else knows.
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The fool says, you know what? I'm gonna go on that path and I don't care. Kim and I and the kids were in Switzerland a few years ago and we wanted to drive, it was more summertime.
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We wanted to drive up to the top of the mountain and instead of skiing down or snowboarding down, we wanted to take these toboggan kind of things down that you would swing back and forth and it's just what you do in the summer now they can utilize the mountain.
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And so we wanted to go there and I had GPS and I'm starting to go and there's this, it's
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Europe. I mean, it's Switzerland, why can't read Swiss? And it's got this circle with red and it has like a little line through it.
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And so I thought, GPS has taken me there, so up we go. Kim's like, I think that maybe honey is like, don't go.
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I'm thinking, don't go is this. So I'm driving, wide road, asphalt, up the mountain, back way, don't have to park, watch daddy.
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Starts getting a little narrower. The people that are walking down are like, what are you doing? Then they start giving me some other kind of gestures the farther
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I go. It's like, I go from the asphalt, I go to the gravel, I go to the little path,
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I go to the dirt road, I go to the jungle and I'm still just driving along. And it was self -evident to every one of those people that I was a fool.
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They all knew it and I didn't know until I couldn't figure out anything else. I said, I better turn around.
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I thought I'm gonna get busted for sure. These Swiss police people are gonna get me. I mean, the fool basically says, look at me,
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I'm a fool. And I think maybe a good lesson is when people in your life that you love come alongside, not with a gift of confrontation and the gift of rebuke, but they just wanna help you.
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Sometimes we can't see our own sins and somebody else can like our spouse or someone else. And they come alongside and say,
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I'm not trying to get you. I'm not trying to say I'm better than you. I'm certainly not, but this is kind of self -evident.
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I don't know if you see that, but you should consider this, that and the other. That would be a good thing to do, wouldn't it? Because we can't see sometimes what's going on.
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Question three, underneath the bigger question, am I a fool? Do I have self -control? Do I know number one, a little sin causes great destruction?
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Do other people think I'm a fool? And number three, now in verses four through seven, do I have self -control?
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And again, what we have in chapter 10 is a bunch of Proverbs. Maybe every Proverb could have its own sermon, but a bunch of Proverbs on wise living versus foolish living.
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This one's very interesting because you're gonna see as I read verses four to seven, how do we deal with foolish people in the world that govern us?
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And so every government is sinful. Some might argue that our current government is more sinful than it has been in America, but certainly we need to live underneath sinful leadership.
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Of course, the leadership here at the church, the elders are not sinless. If you live in a home, your husband's not sinless.
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The government's not sinless. How do I live under a sinful leadership?
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Verses four through seven. It's gonna be with self -control. See if you can spot it. If the anger of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your place, for calmness will lay great offenses to rest.
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There's an evil that I've seen under the sun as it were an error proceeding from the ruler. Follies sit in many high places and the rich sit in a low place.
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I've seen slaves on horses and princes walking around or walking on the ground like slaves.
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You can see even in verse four, I'm dealing with people who are leaders. I'm dealing with people who rule back in those days, you think, and I've gotta respond with calmness and I just can't run away.
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I need, in our terms, self -control. Mark Twain said, suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of a
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Congress, of Congress, but I repeat myself. Oh, sorry, excuse me.
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Of course our government's sinful. How do we live underneath a sinful government?
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We could go to Romans 13, we could go elsewhere, but if the government's full of fools, of course not everybody is, many are
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Christians. How do we live underneath foolish government? I think what Solomon is after is self -control.
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We're gonna have to have some self -control. Fruit of the Spirit, of course, is love and joy and peace and it ends with self -control. If we live under what one person calls a foolocracy, led by fools, how do we live?
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Well, we can just back up a little bit and we say what? We trust the Lord. We understand the sovereign
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God. We understand the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. It's not them ultimately ruling.
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We trust God and just like in Daniel when we read, he lifts up people, he puts them down. We could be experiencing the judgment of God on earth, the blessings of God, and we just submit to God and we trust in Him.
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We don't have to control every issue. We don't have to make everything right. Yes, foolish leadership affects those under its leadership.
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I read about a person that ruled Burma for 26 years, Nhi Nguyen, now
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Myanmar, and he was seven times married and he liked to bathe in dolphin's blood to regain his youth.
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He loved numerology and so he said in 1987 that the only bills, the only currency notes were that had numbers divisible by nine, his lucky number, instantly wiping out all kinds of savings of everybody else.
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And if you lived underneath that, you'd be thinking, a foolish leader is difficult to live under and so I need to have self -control.
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I just can't respond like a fool to a fool. That's the point. Are we going to be foolishly responding like the world does with foolish leadership?
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That's not how Christians operate. The ruler's foolish. We're going to deal with them properly.
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He says a few things there, verse five. There's an evil that I've seen under the sun. There's his typical description of evil again, as it were an error proceeding from the ruler, talking about the ruler again, and you've got rulers in high places and everything seems backwards.
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The rich sit in low places. Opposite, it's backwards. Slaves run horses. They shouldn't be because horses were powerful and cost a lot of money.
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It should be the princes on horses and the slaves walking around on the ground, but everything's backward.
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All of a sudden you get false, excuse me, foolish leaders and the wrong side is up when you get bad leaders.
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When you get leadership that says good is evil and evil is good, boy, that's difficult to live under.
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Get the wrong people into power and everything is wrong. Slaves run horses, princes walk around.
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That's what he's trying to say. Of course, when you think of the Lord Jesus, remember what it says in 1
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Peter to help us. For to you, you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you,
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Bethlehem Bible Church, an example, so that you might follow in his steps.
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He committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.
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When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
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He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die unto sin and live unto righteousness.
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By his wounds you have been healed, for you were straying like sheep, but now have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.
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Jesus suffers unjustly. He trusts himself to the Father. That's what we wanna do. Question four in Ecclesiastes 10, am
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I a fool is the big question. The sub questions now come to number four. Do I understand the principle?
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Ask yourself the question. Do I understand the principle? What you reap, you sow. What you reap, you sow.
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As much as I like basil, and I like basil, isn't that good to just rub a little basil and smell fresh basil?
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Can you smell it? When you plant corn, basil doesn't grow.
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That's odd. No, that's normal. And what you reap, you have sown.
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What you cultivate, you have planted. To reap is to gather a crop and to sow is to plant seeds.
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Adam, he reaped what he sowed. We're reaping what he sowed.
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Jesus reaped what he sowed. Planted seeds of righteousness, dies for unrighteousness.
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And here, that's what's really going on in verses eight to 11.
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Reaping and sowing. I could put it this way. Foolishness has its own reward.
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More foolishness. Sin has its own reward. More sin. So we wanna avoid it. We wanna stay far away from it.
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We've been called as sons and daughters to trust in the Lord and obey Him.
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Not to get into the family, not to stay in the family, but because we're in the family, we respond out of gratitude and we wanna do the right thing.
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And here, you reap what you sow. He who digs a pit will fall into it and a serpent will bite him who breaks through the wall.
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He is not saying anybody who digs a pit falls into it. He's saying in the context of, remember chapter 11, the fool, fools are so foolish, they dig pits, they fall into it.
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They take serpents. And by the way, you'd have some kind of mud walls and sometimes they would cave in a little bit or they become hollow.
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Serpents love to just hide out there. And the preacher here is saying, do you know what?
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Frankenstein made a monster and that monster killed him. Fools do things and it comes back on them.
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Not karma, but divine justice. When you act foolishly, you're gonna get the fruit of those things that you've done foolishly.
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Of course, for Christians, we never have to pay for our sins. They're paid in full. But there are consequences to our sin on earth, certainly in discipline.
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Built -in penalties. Verse nine, he who quarries stones is hurt by them.
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Not anybody, but we're talking about fools here. The fools, I mean, they don't think, they don't plan, they don't do anything.
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And he who splits logs is, easy for me to say, endangered by them.
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Why? Because they're lazy and fools don't plan. And if the iron's blunt, verse 10, and one does not sharpen the edge, you must use more strength, but wisdom helps one to succeed.
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Folly is self -destructive. That's the point. Charles Bridges, evil shall fall upon the heads of its own authors.
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Foolish, self -destruction. They go together. So I say, I don't wanna be foolish because I don't wanna have the fruit of my foolishness in my life.
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And I don't wanna dishonor the Lord. This is interesting. Fools are so lazy, they don't even take time to charm a snake.
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Look, verse 11, if the serpent bites before it's charmed, there's no advantage to the charmer. I mean, you gotta work on that and you gotta figure it out that they can't really hear, but it's the motions and what to do.
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And if you wanna just charm snakes, here's the setting. I'll charm a snake in front of people on the boardwalk in California because they'll give me money afterwards.
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But now I'm not on the boardwalk. I'm in Israel and I'm in Judah. And I know how to get a crowd and they're gonna give me money if I don't take the time to do the right thing and charm the snake.
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It's just gonna bite me. I mean, it lacks sense. It's kind of foolish.
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It's kind of dumb. One man said, foolish delay will come back to bite you.
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Not bad. By the way, this is probably is helpful.
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We say to the Lord, we need more wisdom. Do you think the Lord will give you more wisdom if you ask?
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I think that he would. I think that if you say, God, give me wisdom and you don't doubt that he will, what does
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James 1 say? What does James 1 say? He gives what? Generously. God generously gives wisdom.
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At Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night and God said, ask what I shall give you. And Solomon said, you have shown great and steadfast love to your servant
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David, my father, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness and in uprightness of heart toward you.
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And you have kept for him this great and steadfast love and have given him a son to sit on his throne this day.
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And now, oh Lord, my God, you have made your servant king in place of David, my father.
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Although I'm but a little child, I do not know how to come in or go out. And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered or counted.
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Give your servant therefore gold, frankincense and what?
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Myrrh. Did he say that? He had one request from the
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Lord. I wonder what it would be. House in Malibu? You know where Malibu is?
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I mean, that's a pretty good ask right there. What did he ask for? The same man who wrote all these wisdom proverbs.
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Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this great people?
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It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. And of course, when we think
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I've got all kinds of issues in life, I need to try to navigate them. The best thing we can do is say, Lord, we need wisdom.
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Question five, do I know the tongue is small but powerful? Do I know the tongue is small but powerful?
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Verses 12 through 15. The outline of chapter 10 is, am I a fool? The sub questions are, a little sin causes great destruction.
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We need to think that foolishness is self -evident. We need to respond to foolish people with self -control.
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We need to know what you reap you've sown. And we need to understand the power of the tongue, negative or positive.
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Verse 12, the words of a wise man's mouth win him favor, but the lips of a fool consume him.
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The beginning of words of his mouth is foolishness. And the end of his talk is evil madness from start to finish, from A to Z, he just vomits out foolishness.
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And it's a lot of foolishness, verse 14. A fool multiplies words. His foolishness is exponential.
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His foolishness just keeps going and going. Though no man knows what he is to be, he thinks he's sovereign.
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He thinks he knows the future. And who can tell him what we'll be after? But he thinks he knows. I mean, if the
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World War II poster that declares careless talk costs lives, I see the spiritual aspect here.
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And of course, when you think about the Lord Jesus, how many foolish things did Jesus say?
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I mean, you talk a lot in 33 years. Say a lot of really dumb things. How many people, you don't have to raise your hand, would like to take back some of the dumb, sinful things you said this morning?
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You can see the words come out of your mouth and you're just like wanting to reel them back in. I can't believe I just said that.
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And then what do we say? I didn't really mean that. No, no, what comes out of here was in here.
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I did mean it, but I'm sorry that I said it now. But you say something, you mean it. Whatever came out of Jesus' mouth that had anything to do with any kind of vice, sin, unrighteousness, injustice, what did
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He ever say? And you think, I don't know. Only a perfect man could never sin with his lips.
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And you go, that's exactly right. That's why we have a substitute who pays for our sins of what we say and our representative who perfectly talked in our place.
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It's like when we're in Christ, God sees us as perfectly obeying, including everything we've ever said.
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We probably sin more with our mouths than we do with our bodies. And so Solomon basically wants this.
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Just be careful how you talk. Think before you talk. Be careful, because sooner or later you're gonna say something and everybody's gonna know what you are like.
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The longer this person talks, the crazier he sounds. And if you look at verse 16, this guy talks so much.
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Verse 15, excuse me. He doesn't even work. All talk and no work. A toil of a fool wearies him, for he does not know the way to the city.
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By the way, he thinks he knows the beginning from the end. He thinks he knows about sovereignty. He doesn't even know how to get into town.
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But he talks and talks and talks and never works, never works, never works. Multiplying words.
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Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth, what? Speaks. Proverbs 10, Solomon wrote elsewhere, he who restrains his lips is wise.
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Talk, talk, talk. No work, no work, no work.
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I mean, it's like he the fool is driving down the freeway and is talking so much, he misses his exit.
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I just thought a while ago, I took my sister and Kim, I think, or my sister and maybe
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Maddie. Yeah, my sister and Maddie. And we're going on the pike toward New York, west.
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And somehow I was supposed to go on the 84 to get off to go to Sturbridge Village because I had these free tickets to go and my sister farm, blah, blah, blah.
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And I thought the GPS wasn't telling me fast enough. I know in my heart, I'm supposed to go 84 South, get up on Sturbridge, but it wasn't telling me.
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So I'm just gonna stick with GPS. I stay on the 90. Do you know if you go west past Sturbridge Village on the 90, your
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GPS says instead of eight minutes to arrival time, it says 40 minutes.
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Cause I have to drive past Bob Muto's house by now. 16 miles before I could turn back around.
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Like what is going on? Same thing, if you're on the pike going East, coming up from 84 Hartford, there are no exits between the 84 and the 290.
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It's crazy. Here this person, I mean, maybe I was foolishly talking or maybe we were listening to the
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Bible on a radio app. You don't know. But I'm saying what's going on. He just,
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I just talk so much. Where am I gonna go? No clue in life. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.
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I mean, I watched some of these shows, people in the Amazon and they're putting their arm down these holes and pulling up these weird crabs and stuff and just crazy.
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And I read that there are a lot of dangerous animals in the world. Here's the most dangerous mosquitoes. They kill a million people a year.
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Snakes kill 50 ,000 humans a year. Dogs kill 25 ,000 humans a year.
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Assassin bugs kill 10 ,000 humans a year. Freshwater snails, because there's a infection, kill 10 ,000 humans a year.
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Scorpions kill 3 ,200 humans a year. Tapeworms kill 2 ,000 humans a year.
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Crocodiles kill a thousand humans per year. But the most dangerous animal in all the world is not any of those.
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It's this two ounce piece of mucus membrane we've all got in our mouth. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire.
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So the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.
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Tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of our life and set on fire by hell.
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From the same mouth comes blessing and cursing. These things ought not to be so. And so Solomon is trying to say, be careful how you talk.
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Your old father, Satan, dear Christian, was a murder from the beginning.
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And he spreads lies and he's the father of lies. Don't talk like him. It's good for us to be reminded of.
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Unlike Jesus, whom they said, these are gracious words falling from his lips.
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We need to be very, very careful. It was Spurgeon that said, it's a pity that there's not a tax on words.
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I got really convicted one time, well, more than once, but this particular time, Calvin said, pastors sometime need to fast from speaking.
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Pastor Steve, did you get that? Doesn't apply to me, but I did this for your edification.
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Mackenzie said, silence is golden. Not many people can be arrested for hoarding. Talk is cheap because the supply always exceeds the demand.
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Someone said, it takes a baby two years to learn how to talk and 50 years to keep his mouth shut. Of course, when we don't want to talk negative words, we replace it with good words.
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And we're as we said, here are 12 words that can transform your life. Please, thank you.
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Forgive me. I love you. I'm praying for you. Sound like wise words to me.
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And lastly, am I a fool? Number six, found in verses 16 to 20. We'll be quick here.
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Similar to earlier talk about leadership, do I know the right way to live under sinful leadership?
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Do I know the right way to live under sinful leadership? And you can kind of get the sense here that this all bleeds together.
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Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child and your princes feast in the morning. I mean, they're just foolish leaders.
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Happy you, O land, when your king is the son of nobility and your princes feast at the proper time, when they're wise.
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Well, that's much better to live underneath that kind of leadership, for strength and not for drunkenness. Through sloth, the roof sinks in.
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Through indolence, the house leaks. Maybe verse nine is talking about leaders and they're flippantly saying, bread's for laughter, wine gladdens the life and money answers everything.
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That's the way that fools think. Or it could be kind of back to what Solomon has said many times, bread's made for laughter, that's fine.
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Wine gladden the hearts, that's fine. And at least on earth, money answers everything. Of course, not ultimately, but money is helpful.
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And then he swings back into verse 20. Even in your thoughts, do not curse the king, nor in your bedroom, curse the rich.
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For a little bird, for a bird of the air will carry your voice or some winged creature tell the matter.
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And so Solomon is trying to say, there's a wise way and a foolish way to live, especially under leadership.
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So I asked the question, are you a fool? Are you a fool?
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Now, every Christian here says, yes, there's some of this in me. I'm a Roman seven man or woman, but I sure don't wanna be.
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So then we say, Lord, forgive me. Lord, give me wisdom. I don't wanna keep falling in that same ditch every single time with this foolish behavior.
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I need to walk wisely and uprightly, not to become your son, but because I am your son.
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We fall short in these areas. And in one sense, it's good to be a fool. I remember
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I saw a picture of a guy and he had a sandwich board on. And in the sandwich board said on the front side, there's a guy walking the streets of a big city.
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On the front side, it said, I'm a fool for Christ's sake. And on the back, it said, whose fool are you?
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I mean, yes, it's true. There's a foolishness where I think of first Corinthians chapter one, for the word of the cross is folly or foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it's the power of God.
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Where's the wise? Where's the scribe? Where's the debater? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
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Yes, he did. For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom. It pleased
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God through the folly of what we preach, the gospel, Jesus Christ. The world thinks that's foolishness because the
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Jews want a sign, the Greek wants wisdom. And if you come to me and you say, let's talk about signs and let's talk about wisdom.
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I want to do what Paul does. And he says, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and a folly to Gentiles.
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The foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. And then Paul says, and I say to you, dear
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Christian, for consider your calling, Bethlehem Bible Church. Not many of you are wise according to worldly standards.
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Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.
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God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose you, Christian, in eternity past, what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
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And because you are in Him, who became to us wisdom from God, that is righteousness, sanctification, redemption, so that it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the
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Lord. Aren't you glad you have a wise Savior who wisely had someone come to you and preach the gospel?
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And then you said, yes, I am a sinner. I am going to go to hell. Is there a remedy for my condition?
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And in the wisdom of God, making sure all the attributes of God, all His nature, all His essence, was all working together because He's one and He's simple.
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It's the wisdom of God that says it's Jesus Christ who lives for us and who dies for us and is coming back for us and who is no fool.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank You for the time in Your Word. So many times I act foolishly.
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The dear congregation, they do too. So forgive us. But the
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Lord never acted foolishly. He couldn't and He wouldn't. And so we're thankful.
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We just reflect on Your good nature and Your good character and Your good providence. Many of us wanted to get saved sooner in life to make us not live through all kinds of sin, but You have a master plan.
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You know exactly what You're doing. And when we get to heaven, we'll never say, that was a foolish plan,
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God, for us. We'll say, we see it all now. And if Your wisdom is
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Your Son hanging on a tree, it shouldn't surprise us, Father, that when we look at the world and we don't see things going properly in our minds, that You still have a plan and that we,
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Father, by Your grace, we'll do what Jesus did in trusting Himself to a faithful creator to do what is right.