you
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All right brethren welcome to church this morning, please grab your hymnals and turn to him number 164
Man, I've got a frog in my voice him number 164, please 164 begins by singing praise him
164 sing praise him praise him and when you have found it. Can you please stand?
164
You
164 praise him praise
Yeah
Tell of his excellent
Every joyful song
Because
Crucified
Crazy tell of his excellent
Every joyful song
Oh
All right, Brother Callum, could you open a word of prayer?
Heavenly Father God, thank you for being such an awesome, great God, Lord.
You love us dearly, and thank you for sending your Son Jesus to die for us here, Lord.
Pray for the service this morning, be with our pastor as he leads his song,
and fill us with your Holy Ghost as we praise you, Father,
and be with the preacher as he preaches your word in Jesus' name, Amen.
You may be seated.
All right, let's turn to hymn 188, 188.
And boy, my voice is already failing me, I can't believe it.
188, we'll sing, The Love of God, 188, The Love of God.
The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell
The guilty pair, bound down with care
God gave his Son to win
His every child he reconciled
And pardoned from his sin
The love of God, how rich and pure
How measureless and strong
It shall forevermore be true
The saints' and angels' song
When glory time shall pass away
Faith and earthly throes
And kingdoms fall
When men who think
To pain on rocks and hills
And mountains fall
God's love so sure
Now be with you
How measureless and strong
We give you grace
To add a twist
The saints' and angels' song
Oh, Lord of God, how rich and pure
How measureless and strong
The love of God, how rich and pure
The saints' and angels' song
Could we live in an ocean real
And where the stars of March the day
Were every storm
All of our will and every man
Would fly by train to fly with the bow
Oh, fly above
Would drain the ocean dry
For a new storm
Would take the whole
Would stretch from sky to sky
Oh, fly above
How rich and pure
How measureless and strong
We shall forevermore endure
The saints' and angels' song
All right, I'm going to invite Brother Caleb. I know you're not prepared, but you come and sing our last hymn.
I'm losing my voice, so keep me in silent prayer.
Just during the last hymn and during the Bible reading that I can get my voice back so I can at least preach to you guys.
It's horrible. So, Brother Caleb, come up here. Just choose whatever hymn you want, brother.
And the rings for me, please. Yes, this is Caleb.
All righty. Final hymn before the Bible reading.
Turn to hymn number 169.
Hymn number 169, Come Thou Fount.
Number 169.
Come Thou Fount of every blessing
To my heart to sing thy praise
Dreams of mercy never ceasing
Awful songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious song
And sung by flaming tongues above
Praise the mountain, fix the bonnet
Mount of life in giving love
Do thy praise, my Ebenezer
Hither by thy help I come
And I know by thy good pleasure
Safely I'll arrive at home
Jesus sought me when a stranger
Plungering from the fall of dawn
Pleased to get to be from danger
Interpose his precious blood
Let me praise thy great adventure
Daily I'm constrained to be
Let thy goodness find her future
Find my wondering heart to be
Grown to wonder, Lord, I feel it
Grown to lead the God I love
Give my heart to faith and seal it
Seal it for thy courts above
All righty. Time for the Bible reading.
And I get you to turn your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 10.
Ecclesiastes chapter 10.
And Matthias is coming up for the Bible reading.
Ecclesiastes chapter 10.
Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary
To send forth a stinking saber.
So doth a little folly him
That is in reputation for wisdom and honor.
A wise man's heart is at his right hand
But a fool's heart at his left.
Yea, also, when he that is a fool walketh by the way,
His wisdom faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool.
If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee,
Leave not thy place, for yielding pacifieth great offenses.
There is an evil which I have seen under the sun,
As an arrow which proceedeth from the ruler.
Folly is set in great dignity,
And the rich sit in low place.
I have seen servants upon horses,
And princes walking as servants upon the earth.
He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it,
And whoso breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him.
Whoso removeth stone shall be hurt therewith,
And he that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby.
If the iron be blunt, and he do not wet the edge,
Then must he put to more strength,
But wisdom is profitable to direct.
Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment,
And a babbler is no better.
The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious,
But the lips of a fool will swallow up himself.
The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness,
And the end of his talk is mischievous madness.
A fool also is full of words.
A man cannot tell what shall be,
And what shall be after him.
Who can tell him?
The labour of the foolish weareth every one of them,
Because he knoweth not how to go to the city.
Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child,
And thy princes eat in the morning.
Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is a son of nobles,
And thy princes eat in due season,
For strength, and not for drunkenness.
By much mothfulness the building decayeth,
And through oddness of the hands the house droppeth through.
A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry,
But money enters all things.
Curse not the king, no, not in thy thought,
And curse not the rich in thy bedchamber,
For a bird of the air shall carry thy voice,
And that which hath wings shall tell the matter.
Let's pray.
Dear Lord, I pray that everybody will learn something from the sermon,
And that by day I will be filled with the Holy Ghost,
And that the fellowship after church at our house will go well.
In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Amen.
Okay, before we get into the sermon, I just want to welcome our first time visitor,
Little Hazel. Praise God.
You know, we normally say the Cladniks travel the furthest, right?
But now the Cladniks have been defeated by the, how would you say it, Bereans?
Can we say that? Yeah, so it's Hazel Berea.
It's good to see Annie as well, not Annie Cladnik.
She's changed her name since we last saw her.
Praise God that you've travelled all the way back.
Hey, how are you feeling? Are you feeling alright?
Alright, excellent, excellent. Good to have you.
So here's the plan for today.
I'm going to preach the sermon. I'm going to try to get it through pretty quickly.
And then after we sing our last song, I'm going to do a financial report for the church.
I've sort of been delayed getting it together, but I do want to do a financial report for the church between services.
Hopefully it won't take too long, maybe 10-15 minutes maximum.
And then obviously we have our second service.
And if you're here this morning and you'd like to also join me and my family for lunch after the second service,
you're welcome to our house in Mullaney.
We're going to have some food prepared there.
I've really invited most of the, I think everyone in the church have been an announcer for the last few weeks.
So if you do want to come and join us for lunch after the service, you're more than welcome to be part of that.
Alright, we're there in Ecclesiastes 10, verse number 1.
It says, dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour,
so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.
The title for the sermon is a stinking savour.
Just like those dead flies, they cause a stinking savour.
That's the title for the sermon this morning, a stinking savour.
Now we don't want our reputation, you know, to be a stinking savour.
If you have a look at verse number 1 again, what is this stinking savour?
The idea there is that some dead flies have come into some type of ointment.
I don't know what this ointment is exactly, maybe it's a perfume or something,
but because of the flies they're rotting away, it's just kind of revolting.
You don't want to use that ointment. Normally ointment is something that's quite expensive.
You know, I recall, I think it was the first or second time that I travelled to the Sunshine Coast on holidays,
I took Christina out, maybe I should name the restaurant in case, I don't know,
I took Christina out to an Italian restaurant, it was near Kings Beach.
We just felt like Italian, you know, it was just the two of us, it must have been my parents,
it was probably the first time we travelled.
So we probably had the kids being taken care of by the parents, my parents,
and I took Christina out for a date and they were there eating a nice pasta,
we were enjoying ourselves, having fun, and then we had a look at Christina's plate
and there was like a dead fly, but it's like a frozen dead fly.
And we just called the waiter and said, look, we've got a fly in the food.
And like, you know, they kind of didn't believe us,
it's almost like they thought we put the fly in there or something like that, right?
But you know, it kind of ruined it, like Christina's appetite, she lost her appetite.
You know, it kind of just ruined the experience,
and the fact that the restaurant didn't respond in a helpful way wasn't helpful as well.
It just ruined the experience, ruined the food, it ruined the day, it kind of ruined the day.
Okay, well that's the same idea of these stinking flies that just die in this ointment
and it just stinks up the place.
Then it says, so doff a little folly, so just a little bit of foolishness
that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.
So if you're known as someone that is wise, you know, someone that is honourable,
you know, you may take on a position like a pastor, or you may have another authority,
a position maybe in your workplace, or maybe you're in government,
and you know, you're a politician, and you're supposed to be someone that is honourable.
Isn't that what they say about government officials?
They'll call them the honourable so-and-so, surname, whatever it is, right?
I mean, but if someone's got just a little folly, they've made a mistake in their life,
it could just ruin the whole reputation.
You know, it takes so long to build a good reputation.
In fact, keep your finger there and turn to Ecclesiastes, chapter 7.
Turn to Ecclesiastes, chapter 7, verse number 1,
because the idea of the ointment is found here in Ecclesiastes 7, verse number 1.
It says a good name is better than precious ointment,
and the day of death and the day of one's birth.
A good name is better than precious ointment.
That good name is speaking about a good reputation.
That good reputation is better than any ointment you can have, okay?
Well, if you have a little folly, you get found out for some weakness that you've done,
you've disgraced yourself in your position,
you know, that can just ruin your whole testimony,
and you become this stinking saver, as it were.
You know, we need to be careful about this,
because it takes a lifetime to achieve a good reputation, a good name.
It takes many years in your workplace to work hard
and to show yourself a faithful employee to build a good reputation.
You know, just being stubborn, just being wicked, just acting foolishly
can completely destroy that good reputation that you've built over the years.
And so this is the teaching of this chapter,
that we don't want to be a stinking saver.
Most of the chapter is about being foolish,
but that foolishness leads to a bad reputation.
And look, we're all foolish to some extent.
You know, we all make mistakes to some extent, alright?
We're all going to say things that we probably shouldn't have said, alright?
But even though that's the case, we should try to minimise that,
or maybe rid that entirely from our character,
you know, overcome the foolishness, increase in wisdom,
so we can build that reputation and not be that stinking saver in the eyes of other people.
Well, let's keep going there.
Look, we don't want to have this stinking saver.
We don't want to have a ruined testimony.
It says in inverse number two,
a wise man's heart is at his right hand and a fool's heart at his left.
That's kind of struggling to think about what that means,
but then I kind of thought about it. I think it's straightforward.
You see, most people are right-handed, aren't they?
Who's left-handed here? Anybody left-handed?
One. Uh-oh.
Alright, so from what I understand, about 10% of the population is left-handed.
About 10%. I'm pretty sure Jonathan, my son John, he's not here today this morning,
he's left-footed. I'm pretty sure he'd be left-handed,
but because he saw everyone riding with the right hand,
he started to learn how to ride with the right hand,
but everything else, he's left. That's his strength.
But look, the majority, when you talk about the general populace,
the vast majority, our strength is on our right hand,
and our left hand is weaker.
Well, that's the same kind of idea.
It says that a wise man's heart is at his right hand,
meaning that when you have wisdom,
it's going to give you that strength.
But if you're foolish, it's like in your left hand,
it makes you weaker.
Now, of course, if you're left hand,
you probably want the wisdom to be on the left hand,
kind of on the left side.
Well, that's kind of what it's saying here, okay?
And again, it's just saying that destroying your reputation,
if you're just seeking foolishness,
you just decide, oh, I'm just foolish.
That's just how I am.
I'm just struggling.
I'm just a foolish person. I can't change that.
Well, you're just going to become a stinking saver to everybody else.
You know, you need to improve in wisdom.
It's just going to make you weaker.
It's going to make you less effective.
It's just going to make you continue to stink.
Instead of pulling those flies out of your ointments,
you're just going to be adding more flies to that ointment
and adding a further stink to your reputation.
Let's keep going to verse number three.
It says, yea also, when he that is a fool walketh by the way,
his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to everyone that he is a fool.
Okay, so if you decide, I'm just going to be a fool.
I don't have a desire to grow in wisdom.
I don't have a desire to build my reputation.
You know, as you go about life, as you go about walking about,
you're going to declare yourself to be a fool.
Like, just by your speech.
Instead of your speech speaking wise things,
instead of your speech bringing intelligence
and things that are profitable to other people,
as you open your big mouth thinking that you're wise,
thinking that you're saying something intelligent,
everyone's going to just turn around and say,
man, he just proclaimed himself to be so foolish.
You know?
And so this is, you know, poor discernment.
This is a lack of critical thinking.
You know, a repetition of lies.
You know, when you have this character about you,
it just shows that you're a fool.
And here's the thing, the fool doesn't recognise he's a fool.
The fool thinks he's wise.
The fool thinks he has a good reputation.
But as he goes about life, as he walks, by the way,
he declares himself to be a fool.
He's not saying to everyone, hey, guys, I'm foolish,
but by his words, by trying to sound intelligent.
Hey, his wisdom faileth him.
He's trying to be wise.
But everyone just says, man, what you just said is so foolish.
And, you know, what has been one of my pet, you know,
teaching in the last couple of years is the dangers of the internet.
You don't want to be a parrot that just repeats some article,
some video you saw online, regardless of where you got it from,
regardless if it comes from the mainstream media
or it comes from the alternative media.
Don't be a parrot.
Please don't just open your mouth talking foolishness
that you've not done your own study.
You've not done your own research.
You've not applied critical thinking before you communicate that.
That's my pet teaching.
I don't know, until I no longer hear foolishness.
That's what I'm going to keep saying, okay,
because the internet has made so many people foolish.
You just repeat things.
You just forward things without looking into it first.
And I've given you some examples over the weeks and the months
that I get forwarded, and I just at some point I just say,
you know what, it doesn't sound quite right.
Let me look into this.
And then I find out, yeah, it wasn't quite right.
In fact, it only took me a few minutes to check it out
to see if this is accurate, and it's not accurate.
And it makes me sad because I think I don't want to think of my brother
in the Lord or my sister in the Lord as a fool.
I don't want to think that.
I want to think of my brethren in the Lord as truth speakers,
as people that love the truth, not people that love foolishness.
I don't want to think about that about my brother and sister in the Lord.
So it makes me sad when I hear people repeat things,
you know, but you don't know, Pastor Kevin, if you just knew.
I want to know, but tell me the truth.
I want to know the truth.
You come to church because you want to know the truth, right?
The church is the pillar and the ground of the truth.
So we come to church to hear God's word, to be preached and proclaimed,
because we want the truth.
This world bombards us with lies and foolishness, and that's okay.
You're going to absorb some of those lies and foolishness, all right?
So you're going to need to have that filter in your life
that filters out the foolishness.
You do the research.
You consider what has been said.
Is this legitimate or not?
And once you've ticked all the boxes, you've done your own research,
you know, this is true.
I can prove this in many ways.
Then you forward that information on.
Then you speak of those things.
Otherwise, you're going around thinking that you're wise,
but your wisdom is failing you, and you're proclaiming yourself to be a fool.
Please be careful, brethren.
The Internet has made us not more intelligent,
or maybe some people are more intelligent,
but it's made a lot of people foolish, okay?
And another thing that we can take out of this is, you know, preaching is an honor.
I find being behind this pulpit a great honor to be able to preach to you God's word.
I'm not even surprised that we have this many people
wanting to hear, I think, this crazy pastor preach.
But here's the thing, you know, I just think about how much honor he gives me
and how serious it is.
And, you know, I want to make sure that when I preach something from God's word
that I've studied it well.
You know, studies to show you're self-approved, the Bible says.
And, you know, sometimes when I have someone that is new to preaching,
sometimes the person that is new to preaching,
they want to tackle really difficult or very deep doctrines.
My advice to anyone that is new at preaching,
you want to get up and preach, you know, sometimes I say,
well, you know, what do you think I should preach,
if you're kind of new at preaching?
Just preach the basic, easy to understand, easy to preach kind of thing.
Hey, just preach the importance of reading the Bible.
Preach on the importance of going to church.
Preach on the necessity of prayer, right?
Hey, preach on even fasting. That's not too complicated, really,
when it comes down to it.
Preach about, you know, the importance of just loving the Lord.
And, hey, preach on the importance of going soul winning.
I mean, these teachings, they never grow old.
We need to hear these things time and time again, all right?
But sometimes, you know, the new preacher,
oh, man, I can't wait to get to the book of Revelation
and preach on the end times, all right?
It's like, well, you know what, just leave that alone.
You know, I've been asked numerous times, pastor,
when are you going to preach through the book of Revelation chapter by chapter?
Now, I thought I could probably preach through that in my very first year as a pastor,
but I'm glad I waited.
You know what I say in my mind?
I say in my mind, I'm going to, the first five years of being a pastor,
I'm not even going to preach through chapter by chapter in Revelation.
I'm going to give myself five years just to see if I can be a well enough rounded preacher, right?
I was really suffering end times fatigue anyway when I started this church.
But, you know, I just said, you know, I want to preach on everything else
that I could possibly think about, and then once I've established myself,
and people can turn around and say, pastor, I think you're a wise man,
not that I'm boasting, but wise in God's word, then I feel, okay,
then I'm ready to preach on chapter by chapter for the book of Revelation.
Okay, there's a reason why I've not touched that book in that way.
Of course, I've preached on end times, but not in that kind of depth
where we go verse by verse, chapter by chapter, okay?
And so that's my big recommendation.
You know, if someone wants to come up and preach,
don't come and just bring the most complicated doctrine that you've got in your heart.
Otherwise, you could start opening your mouth thinking that you're wise,
but you'll show yourself to be foolish and potentially destroy your reputation.
Alright?
I don't want people to burn out on their first sermon and go, man, I can't do this.
I'd rather you start low, start simple, you know, just preach a good solid sermon,
and then as time progresses, as you mature, as you gain more experience,
then you can level up and get deeper and deeper into media doctrines.
Let's keep going to verse number four.
It says, if the spirit of the ruler, so any authority that you have, brethren,
this is about your authorities, okay,
if the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee,
you know, sometimes your boss is going to get mad at you.
Sometimes on the job, your boss is going to say some nasty things towards you.
Alright?
Now, brother Caleb, I'm going to give you, you know, an exemption from this one,
because your boss is just a complete jerk.
Right?
But look, I mean, most bosses, okay, they care about their employees to some level.
They care about, you know, the workplace to some level, okay?
But you know what?
Bosses sometimes will say nasty things about you.
Sometimes I've had a pastor say nasty things about me that I think weren't warranted at all.
Okay?
Sometimes authorities are just going to rise up, okay, against thee.
It says here, leave not thy place.
In other words, don't run away.
Don't quit your job just because your boss said something nasty.
Okay?
Don't quit church just because your pastor got upset with you about something.
Okay?
That's not, don't leave your place.
Look, it says this, for yielding pacifieth great offences.
Alright?
For yielding pacifieth great offences.
What does it mean to yield?
Yield means to submit or surrender.
You know, here we've got our give way signs.
Our give way signs.
I believe in the United States, instead of give way, it says yield.
But it's the same design.
Is that right, sister?
It's the same design.
So if you just saw it, you'll know that means give way, even though it says yield.
That's what it means, give way.
What does it mean to give way?
It means that you've got to watch for other traffic, and if there's other traffic, they've got the priority.
They've got the preference.
You're going to submit yourself, you're going to stop your vehicle, making sure the rest of the traffic have the priority.
You know, what this is teaching us is that when your boss or any kind of authority,
kids, when your parents rise up against you, alright?
When your parents get a little upset with you about something, you yield.
You submit.
You go, but they're not right about it.
They're probably not always right.
Because they're human beings, they're not perfect.
Even then, you yield.
You say, yes, boss, we'll do it your way.
You know, one of the best lessons I've learned in life is, and again, I give you a lot of my workplace experience.
There are times when my boss would decide to do something, and I just think, that's not right.
I don't think we should do that.
I think that's going to cause problems in our workplace.
And so I'd go up to my boss, say, boss, look, can I just have a word with you?
Yeah, sure.
You know, this is this.
This is what I think.
I think we should do this instead.
But then I'd say this.
But you're the boss at the end of the day.
Thank you for just letting me get that off my chest.
I just wanted to share with you my concerns.
But you're the boss.
You do what you want.
Sometimes I'd be like, thank you for that.
Yeah, you know what?
I did not consider that.
You're right.
Let's not do it this way.
Let's do it your way.
I'm like, woo, that's awesome.
And sometimes my boss would be like, you know what?
No, Kevin, you're wrong.
It's my way or the highway.
You know what I mean?
And we're doing it my way, and I'm like, alright, boss.
You know, thank you for at least listening to what I had to say.
Alright?
And if that's the way you want to do it, we'll do it that way.
Okay?
And sometimes, just to save my behind sometimes,
I would then write an email to my boss,
just to have a documented record,
and say, hey, boss, thank you for catching up with me.
You know, as I suggested this, this, this,
but I'm more than happy to do it your way.
Why would I write that email?
Because I learnt a long time ago that if it does fail
and it could potentially be my fault,
I can at least turn around and say, look, here's the email.
I did express my concerns, I did express my issues,
but I wasn't in charge of that decision.
It was someone else.
I yielded to it.
I just went ahead and did what the boss wanted.
But one thing, you know, that happens,
whether the boss is right or wrong,
what happens is you obtain favour.
People start to like you.
People give you more opportunities to speak out.
Alright?
And to do things your certain way.
But, you know, yielding does pacify great offences.
Your boss could just be mad at you.
Hey, they might be mad at you.
It could have been someone else that did the problem.
Hey, it could be the boss himself that messed up.
You know what, sometimes you say, you're right, boss.
We all messed up.
Or you're right, boss, I messed up.
Let's just fix this.
Let's just do this the right way.
You know what?
And just having that submitted attitude
goes a long way to making that your authority
just calm down and move on.
And again, in the long run, it'll play out in your favour.
You know, they'll appreciate you as that employee.
Yeah, so hey, when your boss gets mad at you, don't quit.
And I want to talk to the young people here
because, and I've told you many times, young people,
your generation are quitters.
They are.
You know, they haven't got thick skin.
Because, you know, they've not grown up with their parents.
They are disciplined kids.
You know, they're not growing up with parents saying,
no, child, that is wrong.
You know, we live in this generation of,
no, you've just got to affirm your child
in everything that they do.
Even if they write in a mathematical equation,
two plus two equals five.
Well, son, that's your truth.
You know, that's okay.
You know, it's not wrong.
It's just that's your truth.
Okay, but my truth is four, but we're both right.
You know, I love you, son.
No, you're wrong.
In fact, that's a stupid mistake.
Because two plus two is clearly four.
If you write five, I'm really worried about your education here.
You've got to get this right.
You know what, when kids hear that from their parents,
they're going to be able to get into the workforce
and be, all right, I've got a little thick skin now.
I'm not going to get upset every time the boss gets angry at me.
Hey, as long as he's paying me, I'm happy.
Whether he's happy or whether he's upset with me,
as long as I get my paycheck,
that's what I went to work for anyway, right?
So that's the, hey, this is good advice from Solomon, all right?
And look, Solomon's a king.
You know, I'm sure he has gotten upset with his subjects
and he's advising his subjects.
Look, when I get mad, even if I'm wrong,
just do what I've told you to do, please.
It's going to be better for you in the long run, okay?
Rather than just becoming rebellious and hot-tempered
and storming out of the court or whatever it is, right?
It's not going to end up well for you.
All right, let's keep going there.
Verse number five.
I'm going to read verse five, six and seven together.
It says, there is an evil which I have seen under the sun
as an error which proceedeth from the ruler.
Folly is set in great dignity and the rich sit in low place.
I have seen servants upon horses
and princes walking as servants upon the earth.
All right, I was kind of not really understanding what,
in fact, I still don't exactly know
what these verses are referring to exactly.
I'll just share some thoughts.
Number one, this could be saying that the great evil
that Solomon has seen is when, so it's about a ruler,
so when a ruler makes an error in the sense that,
let's say he promotes a foolish person, okay?
Where instead of recognising folly for what it is,
instead of recognising somebody with a bad reputation,
they end up promoting that person instead of someone
else.
I mean, I'm sure you've been in places where you say,
hey, this person got the position, but it would have been,
this person was much more qualified.
I mean, this other person definitely should have been
the chosen person, but, and you say, well,
maybe that's the evil that referred to there.
I don't think that's really what it's referring to exactly.
I think what it's saying is that when a ruler makes an error,
it affects a lot of people, okay?
But then it continues in verse number six by saying this,
that folly is set in great dignity,
and the rich sit in a low place.
So obviously the rich became rich because they're kind of wise
with their money.
And I think what it's teaching is this,
is that when someone is foolish,
they like to lift themselves up in a high position,
and that's the evil.
Again, because they don't really recognise themselves to be a fool.
But then you've got someone that maybe made riches by wisdom,
but he's very humble about it, right?
Like, he's not out there trying to show off
and just try and look at me, you know, look how amazing I am,
you know, but the foolish, no problem,
they'll lift themselves up in their foolishness.
Like, they haven't got the humility, okay?
And then it says there in verse number seven,
I have seen servants upon horses
and princes walking as servants upon the earth.
Again, but a prince is someone in authority, a great power.
Why is a prince walking upon the earth?
Because, you know, sometimes people of great authority and power,
they just want to be a common man.
Again, they've got the humility about them.
They don't need to be lifted up on horses, okay?
They don't need the great ceremonies
and watching great ceremonies of the new king being put into place.
You know, some princes, they don't want that.
You know, they'd just rather just be humble, not recognisable,
but again, you've got foolish people
the servants that are lower than the princes there,
but they're happy to lift themselves up on horses.
And I think that understanding that I've just shared with you,
it fits the context a lot better of the whole chapter.
Again, just speaking about the fact that this evil
that Solomon has seen under the sun
is that the fools like to elevate themselves.
They like to promote themselves.
And, yeah, they can fool other foolish people
into believing their lies, okay?
And the example that I think about, you know,
there's a name that's been on the news media for the last couple of years
is this lady in Sydney, she's passed away now, I believe,
Melissa Caddick.
Have you guys heard that name, Melissa Caddick?
She was this financial advisor
and then she basically convinced mostly her family and friends
to invest with her.
And, you know, she brought in about $20 million,
family and friends money, you know, promising them
that, you know, they're going to make these great returns,
they're going to, you know, this great investment.
But all she was doing, she had a Ponzi scheme set up
and she was just living off their money.
You know, she was just spending all their wealth.
You know, she'd spend literally, you know, $40,000 a day
just on shopping sprees, you know, on nice cars,
on nice houses, and she wasn't investing their money at all.
You know, and one of her investors would come along and say,
look, I need my money back out.
So she'd give him the money back but she would first find another victim
to invest with her before she goes and pays off the people
that are asking for her money.
So this went on for many years and this has been a great,
a big case down in Sydney.
They've had to sell, apparently she disappeared
and maybe another story, they found like her foot or something,
like a piece of her body washed up on shore at some point.
Who knows what happened to her? Nobody knows, okay.
But what do we find here?
Melissa Caddick was a complete fool.
A complete fool.
But she set herself up to be this great financial advisor
and she had these people come in, family and friends,
you think you would not cheat your family and friends, surely.
But they trusted her.
They were fooled by her.
But again, the foolish person, oh, look at me.
Look how intelligent I am.
Look how smart I am with investments.
Come to me and I'll help you.
But they all get burnt.
They all get destroyed by that process.
And so when I was thinking about these verses,
my immediate thought was that Melissa Caddick,
because she's been all over the news for the past year or so.
Let's keep going there, verse number eight.
By the way, brethren, say how do I not get fooled by a fool?
Listen, if you're going to ever invest with somebody,
I'm not talking about even financially here.
Just even invest your time and your efforts with someone.
You want to look for people that are humble,
people that are lowly,
people that have succeeded in life,
they do well in life,
but they're not just boasting about it.
It's not all about them.
It's not about how I get served.
It's about how can I help others?
How can I serve other people?
If you want to trust somebody,
look for the people that are lowly, humble,
the rich that sit in the low place,
the princes that walk as servants upon the earth.
These are the people that you ought to have some level of trust with.
Not the fool that loves to elevate themselves,
otherwise you might get burnt.
Verse number eight.
He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it.
That happened to Melissa Caddick.
She literally dug a pit, as it were,
upon this scheme, and she fell into it.
And whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.
Basically, it will all come crashing down on the foolish.
By their foolish actions,
it may seem like they're getting away with it for a while,
but it's all eventually going to come down and destroy,
obviously destroy their reputation.
That was the title of the sermon.
Again, a stinking saver.
These people have become a stinking saver.
They dig in that pit, but then they fall into it.
They're working on that hedge,
but then the serpent comes and bites them.
They reap what they sow.
The Bible says in Galatians 6-7,
God is not deceived, God is not mocked.
For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
So if you act foolishly,
you might get away with it for a while.
And again, we're all foolish to some extent,
but we need to try to get those stinking flies out of our life.
We need to try to improve on wisdom, improve our reputation.
But if you think just being foolish is the way to go,
eventually you are going to completely destroy yourself.
Completely destroy your reputation when nobody can even trust you.
Nobody even thinks of you in a highway.
It will all eventually come crashing down.
Verse number 9.
Whoso remover stones shall be hurt therewith,
and he that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby.
Verse number 9 is a little bit different.
Verse number 8,
you can kind of see the foolishness there
of digging a pit and then kind of falling into it.
What you see in verse number 9 though,
is just your common workplace kind of jobs.
The person that removes stones is kind of like your bricklayer.
He's moving a brick from one place to another,
building a house or whatever.
But it's saying that by doing that,
you can hurt yourself.
There are workplace accidents.
If anything, a bricklayer might have workplace issues
by just being out in the sun for a long time.
Or just hurting their backs, bending down, lifting up,
picking up bricks, up and down, up and down.
This happens to bricklayers. They damage their bodies.
It pays well, but it damages their bodies in the long run.
He that cleaveth wood,
someone that's just chopping wood,
maybe that's what they do for a living,
shall be endangered thereby.
Because there can be workplace accidents there.
You could use an axe or something.
If you don't swing it properly, you could hurt yourself.
So workplace accidents happen.
What I believe verse number 9 is teaching us is that
you don't have to be like this complete fool to destroy yourself.
If you're working a job,
and you just have one moment of foolishness,
you can have a major accident.
Just one moment of not paying attention
to what you're doing can cause a major accident.
I mean, I recall there was one time that I was driving,
no, that's actually the other way around,
from Sydney to the Sunshine Coast.
You know how I travel sometimes between ministries.
This was driving a car with my whole family.
And I just remember, you know, I decided,
instead of driving through the day,
I just made a decision, I'm going to drive at night.
I'm going to try to sleep as much in the day,
drive at night, less traffic,
maybe I'll get to the Sunshine Coast quicker.
You know what that ended up being?
A foolish decision.
Because my body's used to, guess what, sleeping at night.
So I'm there driving at night,
first couple of hours I'm okay, alright.
And then just for a brief moment,
I have one of those micro, I think it was a microsleep.
It's probably like a five second sleep.
Now, did I intend to fall asleep?
Like, am I just being completely foolish by driving a car?
You know, trying to serve two churches,
alright, but what is, it's a brief moment of foolishness.
Right, where I just, my body's tired.
I should have listened to my body,
I should have just pulled over and go,
you know what, I can't do this,
I need to have a good sleep before we keep driving.
Alright, I mean, but instead I'm just,
guess what, I'm on the other side of the road.
I'm on the other side and I see these other vehicles there
and then I wake up, I'm like, whoa.
I quickly get back on the other side, nothing happened.
No, nothing.
But look, that could have been a major accident,
it couldn't have been.
Now look, I don't think generally people,
I don't think people generally think I'm a foolish person.
But look, that was a moment of foolishness.
What it's saying is that even just a moment of foolishness
can cause you to destroy yourself,
hurt yourself in a serious way.
Just a moment of foolishness
can cause me to destroy my ministry as a pastor.
Right, I mean, there are certain qualifications
that I need to meet to be a pastor.
Now look, I've never really, I've never been into alcohol
or I've never been a drunk or anything like that.
I'm not even interested, but let's say in the past I was
and you know, I enjoyed a good beer here or there
or whatever in the past
and then I've cleaned that part of my life up,
became a pastor, it'd be very foolish of me
and it could just by accident, just sins of the past
where you're just walking down a bottle shop
and I just said, you know what,
I just can't wait to taste beer just one more time.
Just a glass of wine, just for old time's sake.
It'd be very easy, wouldn't it,
if I had that attraction in the past
and I could just, you know, nobody's watching.
You know what, have that drink
and someone at church sees me, right.
I mean, just one moment of foolishness
can completely destroy my ministry as a pastor, alright.
So guys, keep that in mind,
especially for those of you that work with tools,
power tools and things like that.
I know there's a lot of workplace restrictions
and building codes that keep you safe
but even then, sometimes you hear
of unfortunate workplace accidents that happen
and they've got everything lined up,
they've got all the safety checks happening
and it still happens.
Just someone did not pay attention at one moment in time
and I was listening and I was hearing a story
about some electrician that electrocuted himself on a roof.
Just one brief moment, they did not check
that the power's out and there he is,
electrocuted himself, killed himself,
you know, working on the roof.
You know, so just again, okay,
we're talking about being completely foolish
and destroying your reputation
but even that brief moment of foolishness
can destroy you, can hurt you.
So we want to work on this.
We don't want to remain foolish, okay.
We want to increase in wisdom.
We don't want to destroy our reputation.
We don't want to be a stinking saver.
We want to build and work on our reputation
Verse number 10.
If the iron be blunt and he do not wet the edge,
the word wet there, W-H-E-T means to sharpen the edge,
then must he put to more strength
but wisdom is profitable to direct.
So this is very obvious, okay,
that if you want to be able to cut something more effectively,
okay, you need the object to be sharper, okay.
The more blunt your object is,
the more effort, the more work you've got to put to it
and so this is the saying that says, you know,
it's not always about working harder.
It's about working smarter.
So making sure you've got the right tools to do the job
and, you know, just recently since we moved back
to the Sunshine Coast,
Kristina bought a new knife set, you know,
and those knives are super sharp, okay.
For a long time, she was just putting up
with some really blunt knives
and while we were down in Sydney,
like it had taken longer to cook and to cut things up
and we were just wondering, should we buy something now?
Let's just wait till we get to the Sunshine Coast,
then we'll buy some sharp knives.
So anyway, for a long time,
she was just using these blunt knives, all right,
just to do the cooking and she got used to it.
Obviously, it required a lot more work,
a lot more labour to cut through things
and then she's got the brand new knife set, guess what?
Now she can cut things super fast, super effective
but because she's not used to it,
she's had a little accidents on her hand.
You know, there was one time I came home
and she's like, she's holding her finger,
she's like, I cut myself, you know.
Not that she's, you know, normally does that,
it's like she got used to the blunt one
and by using the blunt knife,
she's got to put more effort in
and she's used to that level of effort
but of course, she's got the sharper one now,
doesn't need that effort
and so, you know, she's got to be a lot more careful
about that, all right.
But yeah, it's not always about working harder,
though I do preach many times about working hard
but even better than working hard is working smarter.
You know, finding more effective,
more productive ways of doing things.
You can get more done with less effort.
You know, one thing as well,
before we left to the Sunshine Coast,
because I was going to rent out the Sydney house once again,
there's a lot of maintenance issues that I needed to fix.
Thank God I've got a man down in the Sydney church
that's kind of a handy man, you know,
well-rounded kind of man
and he came to my house one day,
I showed him all the things I want to do
and he came, he's got all the right tools,
you know, he works basically maintaining houses
all the time, he came, had all the tools,
I said, I need to do this, he's like,
easy, takes out the tool, done.
So what else do you need?
I need this done.
You know, what have you, done.
What else do you need done?
This, done, you know.
I need some door stoppers here, done, bang.
Done, right.
I've got tiles here, easy, bang, done.
I've got a hole in the wall here, bang, done.
I'm like, wow.
And I thought, you know what, what are you just doing?
I'm just watching him.
I'm not that kind of person,
I'm not really that handy, okay.
But I just want to watch him and go,
you know what, it's not even that difficult.
But he's got the right tools.
He's got that iron, that iron ax,
but it's not blunt, it's sharp.
He's got the right tools for the right occasion.
You know, I'm trying with these, you know,
these limited tools that I've got to do the job
and it's taken me a lot longer,
I don't even know what I'm doing, all right.
But again, just having the right tools,
the handyman shows his experience.
He's not working harder, I'm working harder,
but I'm getting less done.
He's working smarter
and he's getting a lot more done than I was.
Verse number 11.
Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment
and a babbler is no better, all right.
So if you go around playing with snakes,
guess what, they're going to bite you, all right.
Well, a babbler is no better.
A babbler is someone that blah, blah, blah.
That's what the babbler comes from, right.
The blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
The person that talks a lot, all right.
Now, it's not always just talking a lot,
but the babbler is the babble,
meaning that what they're speaking doesn't make sense.
Again, think about someone who thinks they're wise
and they speak things without doing the research,
without checking, right.
What do they become?
They become a babbler.
It doesn't make sense, all right.
They're not helping anybody.
You're saying, have you ever,
sometimes people say about politicians,
boy, he says a lot, but he didn't really say anything at all.
Yeah, politicians learn to be babblers.
They say things, but then you kind of say,
you know what, they didn't even answer the question,
but they just spoke for like five minutes, all right.
Yeah, they're professional babblers, many politicians.
You know what, as Christians, we should not be that way.
If you've got something to say, hey, say it,
but say it with wisdom.
Say it so somebody profits somebody else.
Like if you're gonna open your mouth,
it better be because it's gonna help somebody, all right.
But the babbler, no, they love to talk
and you're like, you know what,
I don't even know what you're talking about.
It's not even helpful.
I don't think you're even correct.
I think you're lying, all right.
I don't think what you're saying is truth.
I've just wasted five minutes of my time.
Say, well, it's only five minutes.
Yeah, but then it's another five minutes,
another five minutes and we've just not gone anywhere
or we're going around in circles.
Well, we should not be babblers, okay.
But yeah, it's as harmful as a serpent's bite, all right.
That's the kind of thought behind that.
Let's keep going there.
It also, it compares the voice of the babbler
or the foolish to the words of the wise man.
Verse number 12, the words of a wise man's mouth are gracious.
Now, I want you to think about that as well.
If you want to increase in wisdom,
well, you consider yourself to be wise, you know.
Well, are your mouth, is your mouth full of grace?
You know, when you speak, are you a gracious speaker?
What does it mean?
Well, let's compare it for a moment.
It says, but the lips of a fool will swallow him up.
Okay, so listen.
Grace, you know, this means basically
to say kind or favorable things.
When we speak about God's grace toward us,
we say that's undeserved merit or undeserved favor.
God's been kind toward us, sacrificing his son
for our benefit, for our profit.
Hey, that's very gracious.
If you're a wise man, the words you're going to speak
are going to be gracious toward other people,
meaning you're going to encourage other people.
You're going to say kind things about them.
You know, you're going to uplift their positive qualities.
You're not just going to beat them down
every time you have an opportunity.
That's what a wise person does.
A wise person is not looking to destroy other people.
He's looking to profit other people, benefit other people.
Okay, the wise man thinks of others with their speech.
All right, if I know you've only got five minutes
and I need to speak to you,
I'll try to make my message within five minutes.
The babbler, the foolish says,
look, I know you've only got five minutes,
but you need to hear me for an hour.
I don't care what your time is.
I've got to talk to you, okay?
But when you look at the comparison to the babbler
or the fool, it says,
but the lips of the fool will swallow up himself.
So his words destroy himself.
The wise looks to others to benefit others.
The fool only looks for himself,
but he ends up destroying himself, okay?
That's the opposite with wisdom.
Verse number 13, the beginning,
and again, I really like verse number 12 a lot.
The words of the wise man's mouth are gracious
because some people think wisdom is just knowing a lot.
I have a lot of information
and I can speak about a lot of information.
That's not wisdom, okay?
The wise is gracious.
You're helping other people.
You're profiting other people.
You love other people.
You want to help other people.
That's what true wisdom is,
is applying, yeah, great, you have knowledge, okay?
But sometimes the fool, they also obtain knowledge
and they speak that knowledge, but to no profit,
just to elevate themselves.
The wise says, look, I've got knowledge,
but hey, this knowledge is not going to help anybody
so I'm not going to talk about it.
Hey, but this other wisdom that I have might help this person
so we'll speak about that matter.
It's about thinking about other people, okay?
So, yeah, okay, you might be wise in your mind,
but I want you to be wise with your mouth, okay?
Be gracious when you speak to others.
Verse number 13.
The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness.
We're still talking about the foolish here.
And then it says, and the end of his talk
is mischievous madness.
This is interesting, okay?
So this is why you want to overcome foolishness.
This is why you don't want to be someone that continues
and ends up destroying your reputation.
You become a stinking saver.
Okay, look, again, I've said this before,
we're all a little bit foolish.
We all say some foolish things.
We need to fix that.
Don't get comfortable in your foolishness
because if you continue down that road,
it's going to lead you to madness.
What's madness?
Insanity.
Like instead of someone saying,
hey, this person's just a little foolish.
They're going to say, man, this person's insane.
This person's not right in the head.
This person's completely off, okay?
This person's beyond normal, okay?
And what does that mean?
You're basically saying this person's destroyed
their testimony.
This person has a bad reputation.
I don't even want to be close to this person
because he's insane.
He belongs in the, you know, the insane asylum
or something like that, okay?
What are you talking about, Pastor Kevin?
Have you guys heard of Tyler Doker?
Self-ordained pastor, okay?
Tyler Doker.
I met the man.
I went to a preaching conference in 2018.
I met this man.
You know, I thought he was a legitimate pastor.
Turns out he was unqualified, okay?
Turns out he ordained himself.
So he just called himself a pastor, okay?
Apparently he said to his,
he went to his church one day,
he goes to the pastor and said,
look, I'm leaving the church, you know, this or that.
And the pastor says, well, God bless you.
You know, hope you, you know, on your travels,
on your journey, wherever you end up going,
I hope, you know, you're serving the Lord
or something like that.
And he goes like, I've been ordained.
You know, I've been blessed by the pastor.
He said the Lord be with you.
And I said, I'm ordained.
I'm a pastor.
He sets himself as a pastor, right?
Starts preaching seemingly correct things for a while.
And then what's the first foolishness
that he falls into?
The Flat Earth doctrine.
Flat Earth beliefs, okay?
And at first you're like, well, I mean, who cares?
I mean, I kind of had that thought.
I don't really care.
In the big picture, I don't really care.
I don't think it's, you know, that big of an issue.
But here's the thing.
You know, by taking that view, who cares?
It's not such a big of an issue.
A bit of foolishness.
Well, there'll be a foolishness.
But here's the thing.
Someone like that, again,
there's Tala Doka, self-adained, lifted up, right?
He's riding the horses.
He's lifting himself up.
This evil that Solomon has seen upon the earth.
Next thing that he starts to teach is that Christians,
you know, if you're not a good Christian,
you're going to be tormented in hell fire for 1,000 years
when Christ comes back.
Instead of you ruling and reigning with Christ
for those 1,000 years,
he says if you've been performing badly as a Christian,
you're going to be cast into hell fire, you know, for 1,000 years.
But then God will let you out at the end of those 1,000 years.
It's like, man, this guy, at this point,
you know this man's not even saved
because this man doesn't even understand eternal life.
This man does not understand everlasting life.
Okay, so at this point, you're like, okay, I was a fool,
but this man's not even saved.
I mean, this guy's probably a reprobate at this point, right?
But where is he now?
What does he teach now?
I've only come across this the last couple of months.
He now teaches that he's Jesus,
that he's the second coming of Christ on this earth.
It's true, 100%.
I've shown some of the videos to the men.
You guys know it, right?
What's happened?
He started foolishly, and now he's gone mad.
He's insane.
He's truly not a believer, okay?
And look, I can think of other examples like this
where foolishness, what's it teaching you?
Foolishness left unchecked will lead to madness.
You'll operate beyond normality.
You'll think completely different
to what general society thinks and believes.
And look, again, society as a whole is quite wicked, okay?
But there's still some level of normality, okay?
Even in the unsaved world,
there's still some level of normality, okay?
But, you know, foolishness left unchecked will lead to madness.
That's what Solomon's observed over the time.
Now look, if someone's foolish, we should challenge that.
Someone says something foolishly, hey, in church.
We say the church is the pillar and the ground of truth.
If someone comes into church
and starts teaching some foolish doctrine,
we should not just be, all right, hey,
openly teach that stuff.
Hey, open up.
Let's all hear what you have to say.
We should challenge that, shouldn't we?
We should say, hey, where is that in the Bible?
Sometimes those people, just by their words, of course,
show themselves to be a fool.
But here's the thing I want you to take away from what we're,
you know, don't remove the context from what we're reading here.
When you do challenge someone
because they've said something foolish,
remember the words of the wise men are what?
Gracious.
Challenge them graciously, okay, lovingly.
Don't just shoot someone down, all right?
Now look, of course, if a false prophet comes in here,
they're trying to elevate themselves.
They're trying to change our doctrines.
Okay, I'm going to call them out.
I'm sure, even before I get a chance to call them out,
I'm sure one of the men are going to call them out.
I'm pretty confident about that, okay?
And they'll be long gone out of here
before they can do any harm, all right?
I'm not talking about that individual.
I'm just talking about a random person,
maybe even a brother in the Lord,
or just an unbeliever, a visitor that comes to the church one day,
speaks foolishly.
Please don't just shoot them down
and make them feel completely horrible, okay?
If you're wise, be gracious toward them.
Speak gracious words.
Someone comes to church, oh, you can lose your salvation.
You're such an idiot, you know?
Don't you know about the Bible?
Look, I can see a lot of people actually believe
that you can lose your salvation.
Let me just show you in the Bible
what it says about everlasting life.
Let me show you these passages that say you can never lose it.
Come along them lovingly.
Why? Because you're trying to help them.
You're trying to profit them.
You're trying to save their soul
because they've not understood the record
that God gave of his Son
that he's given us eternal life.
That man's not saved.
So we want to be gracious toward people, right?
Hey, we go door to the soul
when it's such a great time to be gracious.
People are going to say foolish things almost at every door.
Almost at every door.
You're going to hear some foolishness.
But you know you've got to work on your graciousness.
You know you've got to be gracious toward people.
If you're going to get the opportunity to give them the gospel
and see them saved, you've got to be gracious.
You're telling them about God's grace,
but you want to have your words that are gracious toward them.
Patient, loving, profitable toward them.
Verse number 14.
A fool also is full of words.
Well, we know that already.
A fool is full of words.
A man cannot tell what shall be,
meaning that a fool just talks
and a man says,
I don't know, I can't make sense of what you're saying.
Have you ever had that? Someone is speaking to you
and you have no idea.
Where are we going with this?
Or someone's asking you a question.
You're like, I don't understand the question.
Can you say it a different way?
I don't get it.
I don't get what you're asking.
I don't get what your purpose is.
I don't get it, right?
So that's what it's saying.
And then it says,
A man cannot tell what shall be
and what shall be after him.
Who can tell him?
What it's saying is that
you might have someone speaking foolishly,
babbling toward you.
You're trying to make sense of it.
You're kind of trying to ask questions to clarify.
But then it's kind of like, who can tell him?
Who can tell him?
You can't communicate to a foolish person
that they're speaking foolishly.
You can't correct them.
They refuse.
Or they get irritated.
They might say something and you ask questions.
Look, I haven't fully understood what you said.
Can you just clarify these things?
I can't get it.
They'll get irritated at you.
They'll get frustrated at you.
Instead of going, all right,
let me just say that some other way.
I realise probably didn't explain it all that well.
Let me say it this way.
They'll get frustrated.
You don't get what I'm saying.
That's a foolish person.
You can't help them.
They don't want to receive correction.
They take offence that you can't understand them.
But they're the babbler.
They're the ones speaking foolishly.
But they get upset at you
because you've not understood their foolishness.
That's how life is, though.
That's the reality of life.
These are things that...
Look, if you're explaining something to someone
and they don't get what you're saying,
just say it a different way.
Be patient with people.
Maybe you're speaking foolishly.
Have you ever gone to someone
and just started speaking to them
and they don't know anything about what you're saying?
Something's fresh on your mind.
Something's on your mind and you're like,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But they don't know what was just fresh on your mind.
It just came out of your mouth.
I remember having an employee like this.
It's like the person would have half a conversation with me.
It's like the first half of the conversation,
she had it in her head.
And I'm giving the second half of the conversation.
And I'm like, but what are you talking about?
What is that about, though?
And she'd get frustrated at me.
And I had to sit her down one day
because this kept happening.
I said, look, I think you're having half the conversations in your head.
You need to give me the whole conversation,
give me the whole question,
give me the whole comment
so then I can respond adequately.
And she's like, you know what, you're right.
That's what I do.
I start thinking about things and it just starts coming out of my mouth.
And I thought that what I thought about already came out of my mouth.
But again, that's being gracious to that person.
Pulling them aside and say, look, I don't really get what you're saying.
Instead of you getting frustrated at me,
we want to work together.
We want to help each other.
You need to work in your communication.
Let's keep going there.
Verse number 15.
I thought this was the funniest verse in this chapter.
Maybe the funniest verse in the whole book.
It says, a foolish man does not want to gain wisdom.
The foolish man does not want to improve on their skills.
They don't want to get better on the job.
They don't pay attention, okay,
to the point where they can't even go to the city.
Let's say you're working with somebody, all right,
and say, look, we've got a job in the city.
We've got to go to Brisbane.
We're on the Sunshine Coast.
Listen, our next job is a good paying job.
It's worth going down to Brisbane for this one.
We'll meet down in Brisbane at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning.
All right.
That's just a simple instruction.
You know, and they turn around like, oh, you want me to go to the city?
Like, how do I get there?
Like, well, I mean, just drive.
Ah, you know, but, you know,
I don't feel comfortable driving to the city.
I've never been there before.
How do I get there?
I mean, if you can't drive, you know,
just catch some public transport.
And foolish man, okay, comes back.
I don't know, do you think I should go by train or by bus?
It's like, well, it doesn't really matter.
As long as you get there by 10 a.m., you know, we've got a job to do.
You know, just figure it out.
They come back to you.
Oh, you know, I think maybe the bus, you know,
because, you know, the travel is shorter, you know.
And then, okay, all right, cool, whatever, catch a bus then.
Like, now you're starting to get weary, right?
You're like, boy, like, this is such a simple instruction.
Just go to the city.
I'll meet you there.
Just whatever way.
It doesn't matter.
Okay, the company will pay for your travel expenses.
Just get to the city.
Let's get the job done.
I'll meet you there.
Okay, but the foolish, what?
They just, they cause weariness to the person they're working with.
All right, they need constant approval.
They need constant instruction.
They never pay attention.
They never improve.
They don't do their own research and their own study to better themselves.
Now, look, when you start a job, a brand new job, you're going to be foolish.
You're new.
Everyone knows you're, you know, you don't know the job.
Everyone knows you're not full of wisdom here.
You're not going to turn the company upside down on day number one.
You know, you need a little bit more hands-on teaching.
Maybe every day for a couple of weeks, someone needs to train you.
That's understandable.
But at some point, you need to be a fully-fledged, hardworking person.
Who can just apply themselves in whatever needs to be done.
I've experienced these things.
I've told you before.
I tell my supervisor under me, listen, I need you to do X, Y, and Z.
Maybe two hours later, they come into my office.
Oh, how do I do that?
Well, the reason I made you a supervisor is so you can work these things out.
Like, I observed you to be one of the better candidates for this position.
I'm asking you to do it, so just get it done.
It kind of surprised me.
I taught an initiative, the lack of initiative.
Go to YouTube, just type it in.
Most things in life, you just go to YouTube, type it in.
You've got a whole video of how to do certain things.
You know?
But the foolish, he's a weary.
He's tired.
He's tiring to people.
And he doesn't make it to the city at the end of it.
You're there at 10 a.m. and the guy's still not there at 10 a.m.
And you find out, oh, yeah, I figured out the bus wasn't the best way to go.
So I wasn't sure how to do it.
Weariness.
Don't be that person.
Children, don't be that child.
That needs constant, you know, reminding.
Now, I've used this analogy before.
When I'm printing out my sermon notes, I say to my kids,
can you check that the printer's on?
They're good now because I've preached about it,
so I don't think they want to be embarrassed anymore about this, okay?
But before, it's like, yeah, Dad, the printer's on.
So I print, nothing prints.
What's the problem? No paper.
That's what I meant.
You know, when it's on, can you check that the printer's on?
Because I actually want to print something.
I don't want to just see a light on the printer.
You know, I don't want to just, okay, it's plugged into the power.
That's not the intention of my question.
The intention of my question was because I wanted to print something.
I wanted to print my sermon notes.
My kids get this now.
The printer's always full of paper.
But that, hey, the full would just be minimum
and not recognize truly what is the reason why I'm asked to do certain things.
What's the end goal? What's the purpose?
Don't be that way.
Alright, gain the wisdom.
Verse number 16.
Woe to thee, O land,
when thy king is a child
and thy princes eat in the morning.
I'll be real quick about this.
But obviously, woe to the land if your king is a child.
And we've seen sometimes in the generations of Israel
that their kings were literally children.
And this happens, I guess, if a monarch dies early
and the only one that succeeds them is a little child.
They get thrust into these positions of authority.
How is a child going to rule over an entire nation?
That's not going to happen exactly.
So woe to that city. Woe to that land. Okay?
At least, whatever you think about the British monarch,
at least the new king that we've got is at least 73 years old.
Thankfully, we did not get an 8 year old child on the throne there.
Whatever you think about it, at least it's a 73 year old man.
He's going to obviously have greater wisdom of how to be the head of state.
They really don't get involved in politics anyway, as far as I understand.
But of course, that is better than a little child
because a little child lacks wisdom, a little child lacks experience.
And he keeps going there, verse number 16.
And like princes eat in the morning, what's wrong with eating in the morning?
It's just saying this, we'll look at verse 17 because it kind of compares it.
It's that the little child only cares about themselves.
They only care about making sure they're fed, they're nourished.
The little child will go and eat his lot.
He wants to go eat his sweets and his ice cream and whatever.
Just to satisfy his desires, his burning lusts.
That is not the mentality of an experienced older person
because it says there in verse 17,
Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles,
and thy princes eat in due season for strength and not for drunkenness.
So it's better when you have a king that actually knows when to eat, when it's in due season.
He knows when he can take care of himself.
He's not after lust. He's seeking his own lust and desires.
In due season, he'll take care of his own needs,
but he makes sure that it's only possible once the land has flourished under his reign.
But again, even more great in profit of that is when the king is the son of nobles
so that he's had a good upbringing.
He's gone from a child to an adult. He's had that upbringing.
He's been raised by noble people, people of good standards, people of good morals.
Verse 18,
By much slothfulness the building decayeth,
and through idleness of hands the house droppeth through.
So this is obvious.
You know, every house that you live in is going to fall apart.
It needs maintenance. It needs repairs.
But if you're lazy, if you're slothful, if you're foolish, you're going to just watch it decay.
You're going to be idle. You're going to be lazy. You're not going to do anything to fix it.
It's going to fall apart. Okay?
And again, if you have a house and it just completely falls apart, it just shows you to be foolish.
It ruins your reputation.
You go, how can this man not even have just lifted up his hand to do some maintenance work
or at least gone to work and paid another man to do the maintenance work?
But see, the slothful, the lazy, they don't want to do anything.
They just let everything fall apart.
They destroy their testimony, their reputation.
But here's the thing that you need to take out of this, brethren,
is that when the Bible speaks of the house,
you know, it's not just speaking about a physical building many times in the Bible.
You know, when it comes to the local church, it's known as the house of God. Amen?
You know, if I'm a lazy, slothful pastor, this church is just going to fall apart. Okay?
But what else is known as a house in the Bible? Your family.
Many times the Bible speaks about your house being your family. Okay?
You know, you can be a hard-working man on the job, but you can be a lazy father.
You can be a lazy, slothful husband.
And you can be the same and just go, you know what, I don't care about marriage.
I know there are problems. My kids, I know there are problems.
I don't care. I'm lazy. I'm not going to do anything to fix it.
You know what's going to happen? Your house is going to collapse.
Your family is going to collapse. Your marriages are going to break apart.
Your children are going to rebel. Okay?
That's the slothful way. That's the foolish way.
You're going to destroy your reputation, let your family fall apart.
That will destroy your reputation.
I take no joy in saying that. I love family. I love my family.
I love my wife. I love my children.
And so I love every family in this church. I love every marriage.
I love every relationship between parents and children because I highly value mine.
And I truly believe every family is so special, so important.
Especially in a society that's trying to destroy what a family is.
The very first thing that God gave Adam is his wife.
Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.
Family is important to God.
But men, yeah, I know, yeah, maybe you're hardworking.
Maybe you fix things around the house. I'm not slothful.
I love my family though.
Are you being slothful with a house that's more important than the bricks and water that you live in?
Verse number 19.
I'll get to these last verses quickly.
A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry, but money answereth all things.
Alright, so basically it's saying that, you know the saying that money cannot buy you happiness?
This is basically saying the opposite.
That money can buy you happiness.
What in the world?
So having a feast, having a party makes you happy.
Wine, again this is juice, makes you merry.
I remember juice in the Bible time was hard to come by.
It was expensive.
A lot of effort came to making juice.
This makes merry. You can enjoy these things.
But money answereth all things, meaning that money gives you all those things.
This is in comparison to the slothful man that we just read about.
That is lazy and does nothing with their life.
They're going to end up miserable, unhappy, and destructive.
But you want to have a good life?
You want to be able to enjoy and have a nice party?
You know, enjoy and buy nice things?
Well you need money for that.
So how do I get money?
By not being slothful.
By going to work.
By laboring.
By increasing in wisdom.
Okay, money does not make you happy.
But money in the hands of a wise man, a hard working man, does make you happy.
You can apply it to things that you can rejoice in and that you can rejoice with others.
Hey, we're having a feast after the second service at my place.
I hope it can be a time of happiness, of joy.
So how do you afford that stuff?
Money.
How do you make that money?
I'm working.
Okay, I work as a pastor now.
Full time position as a pastor.
Laboring.
So, you know, this idea that money does not buy you happiness?
Yeah, if that's what you're chasing, only in life, of course it's not going to buy you happiness.
But with wisdom, with good application, with the thought of how can I bless people, it does bring joy.
But you can't have this joy in life if you're lazy and sluggard, refuse to labor, refuse to work.
You're just going to be miserable and destructive.
Verse number 20.
You say this is common sense, pastor.
It should be common sense.
But it's in the Bible because for a lot of people it's not common sense.
You understand?
When things are in the Bible it's because God knows even as Christians we forget these things.
We lose common sense.
Even as Christians.
And so God has to tell us things that seem so basic, so logical.
Remind us of these things, right?
Because we can often forget.
Last verse, verse number 20.
It says, curse not the king.
Know not in thy thoughts.
So again, people in authority.
And curse not the rich in thy bedchamber.
For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which have wings shall tell the matter.
This is what the saying comes from, a little birdie told me.
How'd you know about that?
Oh, a little birdie told me.
The things that you speak about.
You know?
It returns back to that thought, you know, that if a ruler rises up against you, you know, just yield.
You know, you don't have to always voice your frustration at your authority figures.
You know, if you're in the workplace, you know what, your boss upsets you.
You don't have to go to your coworker and say, can you believe what my boss said about me?
Because you know what, somehow that information's going to reach the ears of your employer.
Somehow that information's going to reach the ears of your boss.
You think they're going to be happy with you when they hear that coming out of your mouth?
Again, it's going to just destroy, it's going to hurt your reputation.
Okay, it's going to be a stinking savour or a stinking smell, you know, in the nostrils of your authority figure.
So just be careful about what you say.
You know, you don't have to voice your opinion about everything.
You know, if you don't like somebody, you don't have to just go and tell everybody that you don't like them.
Just keep that to yourself.
Because you don't want a little birdie going out there and saying everything that you've said under the sun.
Okay, because you'll end up offending a lot of people.
You'll end up destroying that reputation.
Alright Brevin, that's the Ecclesiastes chapter 10.
A stinking savour.
Brevin, please be careful not to destroy your testimony.
How do I not destroy my testimony?
Increase in wisdom.
And not just in information in your mind, but how it comes out of your mouth.
Be gracious with your words.
Okay, and when you identify foolishness in your heart, you need to get rid of it.
Don't just continue in that foolishness or it will drive you to madness.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, Lord, I just want to thank you for your word.
Thank you for helping me to preach this morning, Lord.
And yeah, Lord, I just pray you'd help all of us increase in our learning, increase in our wisdom.
And Lord, we're not even speaking academically here.
We're just talking about increasing the wisdom that you have given us in your word.
Lord, I thank you for giving us a church, the pillar and ground of truth.
That we can come and not hear the foolishness that we hear in this world.
Lord, help us be people that work hard.
And not just work hard, but that we work smarter.
That we respect the authorities that we have, that you have put above us, Lord.
And that we will do the best we can to build a good reputation.
We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Alright, brethren, please take your hymnals.
And turn to hymn number 332.
Hymn number 332. 3-3-2.
Let's sing Channels Only. 3-3-2, Channels Only.
That my love laid hold of me Thou hast saved and cleansed and filled me
That I might my channel be Channels only, blessed Master
But with all thy wondrous power flowing through us
Thou canst use us every day and every hour
Emptied that thou shouldst fill me
Thy clean vessel in thy hand
With no power as thou givest graciously
With each command, Channels only, blessed Master
But with all thy wondrous power flowing through us
Thou canst use us every day and every hour
Witnessing thy power to save me
Setting free from self and sin
The Lord tells to possess me
In thy fullness, Lord, come in
Channels only, blessed Master
But with all thy wondrous power flowing through us
Thou canst use us every day and every hour
Jesus, fill now with thy spirit
Hearts that fall, surrender all
Channels only, blessed Master
But with all thy wondrous power flowing through us
Thou canst use us every day and every hour