Wisdom for Life

All right, hear now the word of the true and living God.

We are in Ecclesiastes ten.

Dead flies make the perfumer's ointment give off a stench.

So a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.

A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left.

Even when the fool walks on the road, he lacks sense, and he says to everyone that he is a fool.

If the anger of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your place, for calmness will lay great offenses to rest.

There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, as it were an error proceeding from the ruler.

Folly is set in many high places, and the rich sit in a low place.

I have seen slaves on horses and princes walking on the ground like slaves.

He who digs a pit will fall into it, and a serpent will bite him who breaks through a wall.

All of ten?

Okay.

Sorry.

He who quarries stones is hurt by them, and he who splits logs is endangered by them.

If the iron is blunt and one does not sharpen the edge, he must use more strength, but wisdom helps one to succeed.

If the serpent bites before it is charmed, there is no advantage to the charmer.

The words of a wise man's mouth win him favour, but the lips of a fool consume him.

The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness, and the end of his talk is evil madness.

A fool multiplies words, though no man knows what is to be, and who can tell him what will be after him?

The toy of a fool wearies him, for he does not know the way to the city.

Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child and your princes feast in the morning.

Happy are you, O land, when your king is the son of the nobility and your princes feast at the proper time, for strength and not for drunkenness.

Though through sloth the roof sinks in, and through indolence the house leaks.

Bread is made for laughter, and wine gladdens life, and money answers everything.

Even in your thoughts, do not curse the king, nor in your bedroom curse the rich, for a bird of the air will carry your voice, or some weakened creature tell the matter.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Thanks, man.

Good morning.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathman, and I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

It's a pleasure to gather together with you all.

We have an exciting morning, especially because we will be baptizing the Hegerty children.

Yeah, that's right.

I just by a show of hands, who's here for the Hegerty baptism?

Wow.

Incredible.

This is a this is a lesson to you all.

Have a lot of kids.

Raise them well, raise them in the faith.

And this is the best church growth strategy that you can.

We don't even have a parking lot, and we have a packed house today, so all the church growth people have it backwards.

Um next Sunday we'll have to find somebody else, of course.

Comes from uh such large family as well.

But uh thanks so much for joining us to celebrate this uh this morning with us.

Um we are continuing through Ecclesiastes, and we are in chapter 10, and we are nearing the end of our time in Ecclesiastes, just two more chapters that we'll cover.

Um but before we enter our text today, would you please pray with me?

Holy Father, we praise you for your loving kindness, which extends to a thousand generations of those who trust in you.

Lord, we thank you for your promises, that they are certain.

Lord, it is so hard to get our bearings in a world that is constantly shifting.

We have such small perspectives through which we can perceive the world.

But Lord, you know all things, and all things are in your hands.

We know that your promises to us are absolutely certain.

They will come true, and we are not fools to put our faith in you, Lord.

But by putting our faith in you, though it looks like foolishness to the world, it is true wisdom.

Lord, you make the wisdom of the wise look like foolishness.

Father, I pray that you would work in our hearts so that we might gain from your wisdom, despite looking like fools to the world, that we might see that there is a true wisdom that you have to offer us.

Lord, that we might receive this from your word today, that it might speak into all of the nooks and crannies of our life, Lord, that you might uncover the places where we do not consider your rule in our lives, Lord, and that we might submit those places to you.

Lord, and that you would make us wise for life.

We praise you for your loving kindness.

We praise you that you have promised us that when we ask for wisdom you will provide it.

Lord, we ask for that this morning.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So this chapter of Ecclesiastes is really about wisdom for life.

Now, the last chapter, what we looked at, was Solomon taking us to the limits of wisdom, and he showed us that death will consume all things, and that anyone can fall victim to chance.

And that death and chance are these perpetual enemies.

And so he took us to these big questions of what what does it mean to be wise or to live well in a life that you know will end in death?

And what does it mean to try and set things up well in a world in which you know chance can conquer anyone?

That the righteous as well as the wicked are just as much victims of chance, and certainly to both will come death.

And he pushed it, pushed us into those big questions of life, and in pushing them, pushing us into them, he exposed to us these sort of hints of an answer.

There are hints of an answer in an afterlife.

There are hints of an answer in the final judgment of God, which will not render all things meaningless, but instead they will find their ultimate meaning in relation to him.

And we saw how that can only truly be found in our understanding of Jesus Christ, the fullness of the revelation of God to us in our relating to him.

So you might think, well, now that Solomon has answered the biggest questions of life, now that he's dealt with death and chance, then you would think, well, if I answered the biggest questions, then these small questions, well, those should just be fine.

They'll just take care of themselves.

But Solomon is no fool.

He understands that just because you've answered the biggest questions of life, well, you still have to figure out what to do with the ordinary, day-to-day problems that face you.

And so Solomon is not the type of a theologian who has his head in the clouds and thinks that there is a uh religious space that you can go to and you can answer and deal with the big questions of life, and then all of the little ordinary questions of life won't matter.

Instead, he understands that you can uh figure out the big questions of life, but if you show up to King Supers and say, I have uh I've solved the riddle of death and chance, it's they will still say, Okay, but that's still gonna be I'm still gonna need 150 bucks for groceries.

Just kidding, that was a bit of a dated reference.

I'm still gonna need$10,000 for groceries.

There are these ordinary problems that you you can't avoid.

You have to know, even if you have the greatest answers, you have to know how to live wisely in the ordinary spaces of life, and that's where you'll spend most of your time.

So Solomon takes us there.

And he brings us, as he's about to explore the ordinary spaces of life, he brings us into a place of the minutiae of them, with this first proverb that he gives us in Ecclesiastes 10:1.

Ecclesiastes 10:1

He offers this warning.

He says, Dead flies make the perfumer's ointment give off a stench.

So a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.

This is an important warning.

The perfumer's ointment, it could be a big vat of ointment that the perfumer is mixing up and you know, putting a dash of whatever, however you make perfume.

And the it's the the aroma you can imagine would be powerful in the where they make the perfume.

It would be this incredible aroma from that place, and just flies, just a few flies in the perfumer's ointment, and it gives off a stench.

There's an asymmetry between folly and wisdom and honor.

You can have a whole vat of wisdom and honor in your life, and just a little bit of follow, just a little dash of drunkenness, and it can all come down, just a little flirtation, and this world that you had built can can all vanish.

It's uh that you should hear it and you should almost think, gosh, it's almost not fair.

But you should see the danger of a little folly.

That there is it the those little flies.

Picture, you ever picked up a whole vat of perfume?

And do you think how much does that weigh?

And it weighs a lot in the way that I'm imagining it.

Then you were to put in scales, just the uh a couple just some flies, just like some flies, and you would see the the perfume, it weighs so much more.

And Solomon says it doesn't weigh more.

You know, it it many of you, I I I I know you, you know, your lives are you've got a lot of order.

There's a lot going well.

There's a there's so much wisdom and honor that the Lord has blessed you with in your lives.

Just a little bit of folly can bring that whole thing down.

The little secret sin that's just allowed to persist.

You should you should look at that and you should you should think it's not it looks little, but it weighs more than the whole thing.

Think of how many stories.

I think this is one of the reasons why we're so captivated by watching people with great lives fall from these little sins.

The the affair that brings down you know, when when the affair that brings down the megachurch.

It's like there's so I think part of what captivates our our imagination is the asymmetry of it all.

So much wisdom, so much honor.

And then this moment and it was gone.

It weighed so much.

That little folly weighs so much.

This is such an important warning.

Part of the reason for its importance, as Solomon continues, is that a wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left.

Even when the fool walks on the road, he lacks sense, and he says to everyone that he is a fool.

So part of the danger of folly is a little bit of folly starts to train our desires.

And it becomes like a little taste, a little Turkish delight.

And then all of a sudden it's a it's all our desires are shaped in a way where now we want more of that.

That feels like where real life is, that feels like where it ought to be.

And it can just be the it's these little lies, I think, that creep in.

You know, like uh like it's a little phrase that you read on social media.

It's like if you if your wife isn't treating you like this, and then you go home and it's like, you know, she's not.

And then it, and then all of a sudden this little this little seed creeps in.

That's the that's part of the asymmetry of the flies and the ointment, of the little bit of folly.

Well, it starts to train you.

And it changes your desires.

Now that's that's a dangerous road to go down.

Because all of a sudden you you you're captivated by the wrong things.

So you're inclined, the right and the left, you should think just like positive and negative, things that are good for you and things that are bad for you.

And so you all of a sudden you're inclined towards the things that are bad for you.

You're inclined towards wickedness, you're inclined towards covetousness, towards murder, towards adultery, towards bearing false witness, towards having other gods, towards breaking the Sabbath.

You're inclined towards wickedness.

That's part of the danger.

Now, when he's describing the fool, I don't want you to think that he's describing someone who's dull.

This isn't dullness.

And the wise person is not clever.

This isn't like sharpness or brilliance.

You can be dull and be wise.

You can be brilliant and be a fool.

What he's describing is the one whose tastes are inclined towards the good things that God offers, towards obedience to the Lord.

The wise person is the one who sees that there is no place in his life over which God does not rule.

There is no problem that she is facing, which the scriptures do not speak to and inform.

It is not that you have particular issues which the Bible does not account for.

The scriptures are concerned with how you're relating to this client that you're trying to lead towards a sale.

The scriptures are concerned with that.

The scriptures are concerned with how you're framing your mental health issue.

Is there a space for God in that question?

Or is this something outside of the wisdom of the scriptures that extends towards a whole other realm of things which do not begin with the reality of what God teaches us in the scriptures?

You can see, you could be very brilliant and consider that there are spaces in your life where worldly wisdom is more effective, where it is better.

And in that brilliance, you become a fool.

And Solomon ends, there's several notes of comedy in this because he ends, he says, even when the fool walks on the road, he lacks sense.

He says to everyone that he is a fool.

You can see the fool.

You can see him.

You can look and you can judge books by their covers and see the fool walking down the road, Solomon says.

But do not think that that this is some sort of that there is some sort of disparity here between it you can see the fool because he's, you know, washed up and there's you know he's tattered, and you can see the whys because you know he's I'm doing giving cartoon examples, but he's driving a nice car or whatever.

That is not the way the distinctions work, but you can see it.

And you just let them open their mouth and they will tell you.

They will tell you.

One way is you could see an incredibly a person of incredible means, and you would ask to tell their story, and you would hear that it it entirely lock it it entirely lacked gratitude.

Or you could see somebody of incredible difficulty and you would hear their story and it would entirely lack responsibility.

In both places, there's a lack of reasoning before the Lord.

And so we become fools.

But when we understand that God is God of all things, this is the beginning of wisdom.

Now, foolishness is all around, and you can see it coming all around, and and that means that there is also foolishness in this life that you'll have to deal with that is above you.

Foolishness where the king is, foolishness in your manager.

Children, foolishness that you have to experience from your parents sometimes, rarely.

Don't count on it, but it can happen.

Foolishness that is above you.

And this is what Solomon begins to talk about next.

He says, in Ecclesiastes 10:4, if the anger of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your place, for calmness will lay great offenses to rest.

Ecclesiastes 10:4

He says, There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, as it were an error proceeding from the ruler.

Folly is set in many high places, and the rich sit in a low place.

I have seen slaves on horses and princes walking on the ground like slaves.

So, the first word of advice, how to deal with anger or folly in the rulers that are above you.

His first piece of advice is if the anger of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your place.

Calmness, calmness will lay great offenses to rest.

You should think of the rulers over you like a T-Rex.

Because you they they their movement, their vision is movement.

That's what the movies tell me.

And so if you just stand still right in front of the T-Rex, then you're probably gonna be okay.

You're gonna make it.

But if you run to the bathroom, then you're gonna be eaten by the T-Rex.

What the warning is, is this is against the going off in a huff.

You feel the anger of the ruler against you, you see the foolishness of the ruler over you, and you think, forget this, I'm I'm out of here.

And it grabs the ruler's attention, and your foolishness provokes their foolishness.

And Solomon is very practical about these realities.

He's very practical about just understand what your life is like.

There are people above you, and you going off in a huff against the one who is above you, you going off in a huff against your boss, will your boss has more power over you than you have over them.

This is very plain.

He's being very practical, but he's saying there is a power that you have.

Calmness.

Calmness is a power that you have in the face of anger.

He's very practical.

Likewise, you should be aware, as he continues on, that the higher you you should not think that the world is so simple, that the higher you climb, the more wisdom you will discover.

You should not think that the higher you climb into your organization, that the more places of authority, the more inner circles you join, that you are discovering greater and greater wisdom, and there is finally greatest wisdom at the top.

You should not think that.

Because there is foolishness, and Solomon has seen it, folly is set in many high places, and the rich sit in a low place.

You can go to the highest places and you will discover just as much folly.

I think the great shock is you will discover that the way things work and the way things are run in the highest places are just about like the way things work and the way things are run where you are.

There's folly in both places, there's opportunity for wisdom in both places.

Do not be a fool to think, well, there's i that the world lays itself out in some clean way and it's dangerous.

There's of course great risk because of this, because like the boss who is able to have disproportionate power over you in their huff of anger, then if you both go off in a huff of anger, he walks away with his job, you walk away without yours.

Kind of a ripoff.

Solomon says you have to understand that that's the way it is.

But it also should uh make you understand.

That you cannot look out and be able to discern wisdom just by your initial optics.

And you know this because in high places there is foolishness, and in low places there is foolishness.

You can gamble all of your money away surrounded by luxury at the high roller table at the MGM Grand.

And people do.

And you can gamble all of your money away at the at the slot machine at the Holiday Inn just outside of the Vegas airport.

There's foolishness everywhere.

If you drive in north from Federal down here, you'll drive past multiple uh we'll say uh bars of ill repute.

And you drive in and you say, Well, look, this isn't the nicest part of town.

It's kind of I it makes sense, kind of people down in their luck, and there's so they we'd see this sort of foolishness here, and they're squandering themselves, and it's and uh that's uh of course they're they're the fools, and of course it's on the outskirts of the city, and that's where we would expect to find that sort of thing.

And then you can drive right downtown, right into the city center, and with uh instead of parking surrounding it with valet parking, you can find the same sort of establishment of ill repute.

It's the same.

Wouldn't you think that the higher up you went that you would see less and less foolishness?

And Solomon says, no.

Do not mistake foolishness for being dull.

Do not mistake brilliance for wisdom.

It's an important distinction that Solomon makes.

Doesn't make any any sense.

And some of the most ordinary, foolish things that I've believed, like, I don't know, have you tried forgiving them?

Like, I don't know, maybe you're just sinning and you need to repent.

Those have seemed to stand the test of time.

Solomon continues on.

You guys you know, you should be taking notes on this because this is wisdom for your life.

Ecclesiastes 10, 8 through 9.

He who digs a pit will fall into it, and a serpent will bite him who breaks through a wall.

He who quarries stones is hurt by them, and he who splits logs is endangered by them.

Okay, so this first verse, verse 8.

He who digs a pit will fall into it, and a serpent will bite him who breaks through a wall.

That sound we get this ring of there's like a poetic justice.

You know, like if you you were the one breaking through the wall and you got bit by a snake.

You know, you were you were the one throwing rocks, glass house liver.

And so now you're home because of the other one's throwing.

So also there's a poetic justice, and it gives this hint of okay, okay, I can understand this.

I can spot the places of foolishness.

That place on the outskirts of town and that place in the city center, I won't mistake them for one being a place of foolishness, one being a place of wisdom.

There I see there's foolishness in all all sorts of these places.

But if I go down that road of foolishness, of course it will bite me.

If I break through that wall that I should have, if I it which just think of it simply, it's like you transgress a boundary, and it turns out that that boundary was a terrarium.

You know?

Well, it's where snakes live when we keep them in captivity.

So there is this, there is this reality of the the the wicked things that you mess with will hurt you.

It will hurt you.

You tell a lie, and it will reveal you as a liar.

It was supposed to conceal.

Oh, but it revealed something about you.

See, the that that there is this sort of justice in the world.

But lest you think that you could simply avoid those places of wickedness and then avoid the danger of the world, Solomon is quick to remind you this these other aspects of life, which is he who quarries stones is hurt by them, and he who splits logs is endangered by them.

Now I don't think that's a moral statement.

I think that's a statement of just, hey, here's what it's like out here.

You know who gets hurt by cutting stones?

The people who cut stones.

You know who gets hurt by splitting logs?

The log splitters get hurt by splitting logs.

You've got to know that the that the thing you're signing up for, even the things that you need to do and need to participate in, there's danger there too.

And it's a type of danger that's like what you'll experience, that's like what you're participating in.

You marry that woman, then you'll argue with that woman.

That's just a fact.

If you are the if you choose this job instead of that job, then you'll experience the pains of this job.

You decided you had two opportunities in front of you.

One was entrepreneurial and risky, one was steady and it was seemed more sustainable.

And you chose the steady job, and so you know what risks you get.

You get the risk of boredom, you get the risk of dealing with this manager who doesn't really know what he's doing, and you get the risks of all those ordinary risks come with that job.

That's what you get.

You chose the entrepreneurial route, and now you're it now you're stressed.

And you thought, if I do what I love, I'll never work a day in my life, and the thing that you thought you would love, now you hate.

And you work, instead of never working a day in your life, you never rest because you're constantly thinking about it.

Well, that that's the risk.

That's the risk of the job.

If you're a stone cutter, then the stones hurt you.

If you're a woodcutter, then you're gonna get splinters.

Why is it that uh Christians are always the ones, it doesn't it, isn't it absurd?

Christians are the ones that uh it have the scriptures and have so much in common.

Why are they always the ones that are arguing so much with each other?

Well, why when you're in the back of the car, is it that you're always arguing with your sibling?

Because they're the ones sitting next to you.

And so that this is a fact, it's an ordinary reality that it that must be recognized.

And part of what you're recognizing in this is okay, you know what, there's no place that's safe.

There's no place that I can go to because the stonemason is thinking, ah man, this thing one of these dropped one of these rocks on my foot again.

Wood doesn't seem so heavy.

I'm gonna go over there and then I won't be hurt by these stones anymore.

And you're right.

You won't be hurt by the stones anymore.

But then it splinters off and it hits you in the eye, and you're like, yeah, gosh, this never used to happen with the rocks.

There's just a plain wisdom in this that you that that you you need to have, you need to accept, especially when you can sense the comparison coming in between it's uh your life and you look at somebody else's whole life, and it it seems, oh, that's just plainly better.

It's plainly, you're just signing up, you're a rock splitter and they're a woodcutter.

Rock splitters get hurt by rocks, woodcutters get hurt by wood.

It's not a moral lesson.

It's not a moral lesson.

We often try and turn these things into moral lessons to make ourselves feel safe and in control.

If it's a moral lesson, then I just won't do the bad thing and then I'll be fine.

It's not like that.

Saying this is the way that it is.

If you're wise, you'll understand it.

Then he continues on, Ecclesiastes 10, 12 through 13.

And he begins to discuss words.

You can't have wisdom literature without the discussion of words because they're so important.

They can form a good life for you and they can tear one down.

A bunch of good words filled with wisdom and honor can be destroyed by a few words of folly.

So he goes on and he says, The words of a wise man's mouth win him favor, but the lips of a fool consume him.

The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness, and the end of his talk is evil madness.

The words of a wise man's mouth win him favor, but the lips of a fool consume him.

Just by the words of a wise man, he's able to gain himself favor.

Favor, benefits, things that go well for him in his life, just by his words, just by saying the right thing at the right time.

He stood before the king and he didn't go off in a huff.

He just he stayed calm, and it worked for him.

We have examples of both of these.

The fool, you see, the beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness, and then it ends in this evil madness.

You think of Nehemiah before the king.

Remember, he goes in and he he uh measures his speech and he says he's doing all the stuff you got to do before a king, which is, hey man, I know you're busy.

Uh, I don't mean to bother you, I know you got a lot going on.

I just wanted to put this to the top of your inbox just so that we could keep this conversation going.

You know, the way you the way you talk to kings.

He does all that stuff.

Uh Xerxes, yeah.

Sorry, my face is a little sad.

It's been, but I've been sad about this, about what's been going on with my city back home.

And, you know, this is something you actually could probably help with and could maybe gain, maybe you could you could participate in helping with this as well.

Gives the king an opportunity to be glorious in his response.

And Nehemiah, by the wisdom of his words, he gains incredible favor.

You see where his wisdom comes from.

Before he goes into the king, Nehemiah prays before the Lord.

And he and he thinks, Lord, give me favor.

I know that there is that even the king's heart is in your hands.

Nehemiah understands things like that.

He he part of his wisdom is understanding the limits of his wisdom and his dependence upon the Lord when he goes in to talk before the king.

But we have other examples of the fool.

Remember the man who witnesses the death of Saul?

And Saul, who dies by suicide, he goes to David, this man, who witnesses the death, and he thinks, I know how I'll gain favor with David.

I'll tell David, I killed Saul.

And he tells David that he was the one that killed Saul.

And he thinks Saul was King David's enemy.

This will be a great way for me to gain favor with King David.

I'll be able to hold him in this plot, and he'll see me as the enemy of his enemy, and then he'll think of me as his friend.

And so it begins with this, his mouth is foolishness.

And he goes and he says, Yes, he's dead, I killed him.

I'm the one who uh conquered your enemies.

And uh then David's response is um, oh, well, what are you thinking about describing this to me?

I'm going, this is an unjust taking of raising your hand against the Lord's anointed, I'm going to kill you now.

And so this fool who thinks he's being clever is reasoning completely apart from the truth, completely apart from the providence of God, the re- the acknowledgement of God, and his words consume himself.

He becomes consumed by his own lie.

If you think about it, for if you thought about it with just the slightest amount of wisdom, he would think, you know what I'm about to go do is tell the Lord's anointed that I'm the type of guy that raises his hand against the Lord's anointed.

So you think about it for you know 30 seconds, four and seconds, maybe not the move.

Maybe just tell him what happened.

And just entrust your fate to the Lord by honoring the king with the truth.

And you see that the end of his talk is evil madness.

The beginning of it was just foolishness.

I'll gain favor with David, but the end of it is evil madness.

I'll make myself the type of person who would raise his hand against the Lord's anointed.

And he becomes consumed by it.

Now, part of the reason that the words of the foolish end up consuming themselves is because they do not, one of the marks of a fool is they do not understand the limits of wisdom.

In Ecclesiastes 10, 14, it says, A fool multiplies words, though no man knows what is to be, and who can tell him what will be after him?

True wisdom, as Solomon has explained to us throughout Ecclesiastes, part of the essence of true wisdom is understanding the limits of wisdom.

You cannot have a complete picture of the world from the beginning to the end.

You cannot have a reason for everything.

You can know that the Lord does, but you cannot know what it is.

There are things that will come in that will just plainly surprise you and that do not fit your framework for how you think the world should work.

The wise man knows that that is the case.

The fool multiplies his words.

Though no man knows what is to be, the fool thinks he knows what is to be.

I can tell you exactly what they were doing.

Yeah, here's what they were thinking, and they're probably doing like this, and I can probably even diagnose the personality disorder that they have just from half the story that I've heard.

And now that I've done that, I can tell you exactly how you should treat that person and exactly how this uh relationship should unfold, and you're gonna need to do exactly these things, and if they work that way or this way, and uh it's a complete picture of the world, no mystery, no remainder, and it is foolish.

It's foolish.

And they end up multiplying their words after nothing.

Chesterton puts his finger on this.

He says, the madman is not the man who has lost his reason.

The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

The madman's explanation of a thing is always complete and often in a purely rational sense satisfactory.

So, one way to spot the madman, one way to spot your own foolishness, is when you find yourself thinking in ways like this, I can tell you what God is doing from the beginning to the end.

I can tell you exactly what all of these things mean, and I can tell you exactly how this situation will unfold, and there's no remainder in it.

That is the that is evidence of the fool.

But the wise person, and the fool, the fool can become the wise person when they resolve their own ignorance.

And it is not a resolution of ignorance by discovering the true knowledge on the other side of it, it is a resolution of their ignorance by recognizing the inevitability of their own ignorance.

There are things you don't know.

You can't know, you won't know.

That's what it's like out here.

What we do instead is we entrust ourselves to the one who does fully know.

That is the only way.

It's the only way.

He continues on in verse 15.

He says, The toil of the fool wearies him, for he does not know the way to the city.

Another point of comedy.

But you can see that the one who has an explanation for everything, who's multiplying his words and is able to describe everything completely as it ought to go.

He becomes weary, because this is a toil, and he becomes weary in such a way where he's not able to do the simplest things.

And it that's it, this is supposed to be, I think, sort of funny, where he says the toil of a fool wearies him, for he does not know the way to the city.

Now, it's sort of like uh the finding your way to the city is very easy.

You know, where do all roads lead?

Yeah, to Rome is the answer.

So if you're looking for Rome, the the whole point of this is not hard to find.

Just do the ordinary stuff.

Do what the ordinary folks are doing.

Look around and see, like, yeah, it seems like everybody's going this way from but like you know from around like, I don't know, 7 to 8.30.

There's a lot of people on the road going that way.

Maybe I'll try that.

But the fool is toiled in his weariness.

Because he would say, Yeah, yeah, they're all on the road driving that way because they don't know what I know.

They don't know that this fiat currency they're all going to earn is gonna plummet in just another three weeks' time because I've measured the thing and I can tell you the way that it's all gonna go, and so I'm not playing this game.

I'm not a fool like those people.

I'm not getting taken in like them.

You know what?

They take fiat currency at King Supers.

And if you get hungry later, it's one of the best places to go.

So it's where the food is.

The fool toils himself.

You'll prod it, it's perfectly rational, it's perfectly reasonable.

Everything about it makes sense, but it's a tightness of reason that wearies the fool and leaves no space to say, there's things out here that I just don't know.

There's things out here I just don't know.

The way that that paradigm is finally broken, and the difference between foolishness and wisdom is the wise man knows that all wisdom comes from God.

And that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, which means that the starting point for your wisdom is the one who is incomprehensible, the one who is beyond your imagination, the one who is not just a stronger version of you, but who is God who is over all things.

And the fear of him is the beginning of wisdom.

It's an antidote to foolishness.

Verses 16 through 17.

He says, Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child, and your princes feast in the morning.

Happy are you, O land, when your king is the son of the nobility and your princes feast at the proper time, for strength and not for drunkenness.

Solomon has given us an example of what to do when a king is a fool over us, but now he gives us just the simple warning of what it means when the king himself is a fool.

This isn't the stand still type of advice.

This is the in the category of here you should know what it's like out here, type of advice.

It's not good for you when your king is a child.

Now, this can at least mean that they act like a child.

And when they feast in the morning.

That means celebrating before the victory.

That's not good because that means that the king sees his people as there to serve him.

That's not a good king.

The type of king that you want, when you want a happy land, is when your king is the son of the nobility.

Now, what is that?

Is that just nepotism?

No, you want a king who has been raised up from the ones who understand the weight of what his role means, so that he has been invested in and built up with wisdom by the ones who have shown their nobility before.

And then he is able to bear the weight of what the kingdom will mean.

And then this is the type of prince who feasts at the proper time, and when he feasts, it's for strength and not for drunkenness.

For drunkenness, you should think of avoidance.

You should think of a king who is able to neglect any of the real problems that are facing him, because he's already feasting in the morning.

But we ought to desire and we ought to seek for in our Our leaders, the type of kings who are seeking to gather strength, so that they might rule by strength, and in their strength it is a benefit to their people.

Now we need the type of king who could rule by strength, not by drunkenness or foolishness, because the world requires constant maintenance.

In verses 18 through 19, it says, Through sloth the roof sinks in, and through indolence the house leaks.

And then in verse 19, bread is made for laughter, and wine gladdens life, and money answers everything.

Through sloth, the roof sinks in, and through indolence the house leaks.

Do you know what you have to do in order to get a leaky roof?

All you have to do is nothing.

Do you know what you have to do to get weeds in your garden?

All you have to do is nothing.

Constant maintenance.

That is what it's like out here.

That's why it is helpful to have a king that rules by strength.

He would save his feasting for later so that he might regain his strength, but then would look out and say, okay, there's some things that need to be tended to.

There's things, of course, today that need to be taken care of.

You know how Ron Popeel can make a whole turkey?

Does anybody know what I'm talking about?

All he has to, he puts it in the rotisserie oven.

Did you guys not watch infomercials growing up?

He puts it in the rotisserie oven and he he puts it in and he you all you have to do is you set it and forget it.

You were holding out on me.

You set it and forget it.

That is not what life is like.

It's not what life is like.

It's more like it's like parenting.

You get a you get a good bedtime routine.

And then they get a little older, and it's got a shift again.

You have another kid, and you've got to figure out how to navigate this again.

And it's like, but I thought we had this figured out.

Like I thought I cracked the code on how to do this.

I thought I could just set it and forget it.

It's not what life is like, requires constant maintenance.

But there's some things that you should try and get.

Bread is made for laughter, wine gladdens life, and money answers everything.

Money answers everything.

Should go on a coffee mug.

Bread is made for laughter.

Bread is good for laughter.

Food, feasting, enjoyment for laughter.

Wine, it gladdens life.

There's a place for wine, for the gladdening of life, for the Sabbath.

There's a place for these things.

And money answers everything.

Leaky roof?

You know what fixes leaky roofs?

Getting up there and fixing your leaky roof.

You know what else fixes leaky roofs?

Money.

Money also fixes leaky roofs.

You probably got a ton of questions.

You probably have many problems right now that you're facing.

And I bet money could solve almost all of them.

It's like you you know what could fix this?

You could just have more money.

And that would probably fix that problem.

So you should try and get those things.

Don't be a fool.

You should try and get bread.

And you should try and get that bread.

Didn't mean for that to happen, but I couldn't avoid it once it was already there.

You should seek to have feasting with your friends.

You should seek to have friends to feast with.

You should seek to have wine to gladden life.

You should you should go to celebrations, you should celebrate things, you should have birthday parties for your family members.

You should celebrate them.

My wife's families, they're really into birthdays.

And I used to think, like, alright, guys, this is a bit much, like everybody settle down.

And now I'm like, of course.

When else do you get the chance to just celebrate someone?

Why wouldn't we do that?

Our lives should be full of that.

They have opportunities to be.

Our lives should be full of that.

And don't be a fool.

You should ask for a raise.

You should try, you should try and get more money.

It'd probably be better for you.

It answers, let me check, everything.

It answers everything.

Ecclesiastes 10 20, this final word of advice for this section and this wisdom for life, this practical wisdom for life.

Even in your thoughts, do not curse the king, nor in your bedroom curse the rich.

For a bird of the air will carry your voice, or some winged creature tell the matter.

I don't this is before you could torture life with social media.

He was a they it it's just a fact of the world.

You just have to know this that the there are no secrets from the ones above you.

Children, your parents know.

They know, they really know.

It's crazy.

Because you try and not laugh because you need to discipline, you know.

But your parents know.

It's a fact of the world.

Your boss knows.

There's this weird thing that's um that it's important to know about leadership.

And if you're in leadership when you have people in leadership over you, which we all are and we all have, then there's this odd thing about being a leader where you know more than everyone else.

And you know way less than everyone else.

You know more because you're seeing things that that the people that are working for you are not seeing, and you know less because there are conversations that are happening without you in the room that only happen without you in the room.

And so there's a less that you know, but you but you oughtn't you what this is an implication of, you know what he's saying?

He's he's saying simply here, honor your mother and father.

Honor the ones that have authority over you in those positions that they are.

Honor, honor the manager, honor, honor your father and mother.

Kids, honor your father and mother.

They know.

And don't play a risky game.

Because there's little birds out there, and they'll take what you say and they'll make it known.

Now, this is wisdom for life, and this is this is all practical, helpful, sort of like we've talked about the problem of death and chance.

And here we're talking about the ordinary problems of life, just the ordinary ways that you have to know how to live.

What I hope that you see here is that just as with the problem of death and chance, it terminated.

The way that we saw any resolution to this was we need Jesus to overcome death for us.

And we need Jesus to be sovereign over all things so that we can have faith in the midst of chance, that way we might even partake of joy in this life.

And we're we're comfortable in a sense, it makes sense to us to say in those grand questions we ought to live by faith, and that that's the only real resolution.

But then, and you you you might even know that, but but I know I know that most of your stress, most of your anxiety and your fear, although maybe it ought to be the reverse, but it's taking place in later tonight when I I had a friend uh over for dinner and they're explaining that the the sun people are sending Sunday night emails, that's becoming a more common thing.

Sending Sunday night emails for work.

That's we that we should have Sabbath laws.

Because somebody sending a Sunday night email, just so you know, just a heads up, that's about them.

That has nothing to do with you.

That is completely about their anxiety.

But the point of what I'm saying is uh that our stressors, our anxieties, they take place of like, man, I've got this issue at work.

I've got this financial reality that I'm facing, I've got this little relational thing.

It's not my whole life, but it's a part of my life.

I've got, I can't figure out whether to ask for this raise or not ask for this raise.

And it's I'm having trouble figuring out how to work with this uh employer, not work with this employer.

And we we think that those questions, those practical areas, that we do not have to enter those by faith.

But I'm telling you, the only way to enter those areas, to live rightly in those areas, is by the wisdom of faith in the scriptures.

A faith which says the Lord is sovereign here.

He's just as much Lord here in these tiny little minutias of my life, these tiny little places where I feel like the Lord would certainly have written them off.

He is not.

The Lord is sovereign there.

And he invites you to rest in his sovereignty in those places, just as you would seek to rest in his sovereignty in the face of death, in the face of terrible chance.

He is sovereign there too.

He is Lord there too, and worthy of honor in those places.

So seek to mortify those flies before they get into the ointment.

That you might hold fast with a fullness of faith, even in the smallest areas of our lives.

So we can trust him there too.

All right.

Now let us pray and then we'll take the communion after I find my spot.

Holy Father, I pray that you would uncover in our hearts the flies in our ointment.

Lord, that we might see the threat of their weight.

Lord, that we might seek to grow in our faith in you, of course, in the grand questions of life, but also in the little particular particularities of life that you have given to us and given to us so that we might faithfully honor you with them.

Lord, would you help us to trust you there?

And that you would be glorified in these places that we might write off before you, but you do not write off because you care for us.

We praise you for that, Lord, and lift us up in Jesus' name.

Amen.