the song service this evening. Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. We'll begin singing in song
number 54 in your hymnal. Oh, that will be glory. Song 54 in your hymnal. Thank you everyone
for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. Oh, that will be glory. Song number 54. Father,
thank you so much for our church, Lord. Thank you for Pastor Shelley and his family. I pray
you would fill them with your spirit, Lord. Allow them to preach an edifying message.
I pray you would help us to pay attention to be edified tonight that we may be a better
light in this world, Lord, and use it for your honoring glory and in Jesus' name, amen.
We'll continue the song service this evening with song number 65, Just Over in the Glory
Land. Song number 65 in your hymnal. Song number 65, Just Over in the Glory Land.
Good singing. If you need a bulletin, you can lift up your hand nice and high so I can
get you a bulletin. We have our Bible memory passage, Jonah chapter 2 we're working through.
On the inside we have our service and soul winning times. Also our church stats. One
update, so previously we've been just kind of communicating and messaging all of the
soul winning information to your tribe captain specifically. But just to make things even
easier, we've actually created another group chat that you can actually submit all of that
data to. And we want to have just all of our soul winners and all of our members added
to that. And it's just specifically just the stats. So you can just put you, your partner
numbers and then email if you get an email from those who you're out soul winning with.
And that'll just make it even easier for tracking. You don't have to tell anybody else. You can
just put it in there and then it is done. And so we're going to try and use that. If
you aren't added or you need to see, get into that group, you can ask your tribe captain
or you can ask me and they can get you in there. If you're not in the group or you don't
want to even be in the group, you could still just message your group captain and they could
put it in there for you. But for those that want to just put it in there themselves, it
just makes it that much easier and will just help us with tracking for soul winning and
emails and everything like that.
On the right, we have our list of expecting ladies. Please be in prayer for them. Down
below is our prayer list. If you continue to pray for our church family, we'll go over
that in a minute. Upcoming events, we have the Texas chili cookoff. This is next week's
Thursday. And so if you would like to join us and come out for a chili cookoff, we would
love for you to participate. You don't have to bring anything. But of course, if you'd
like to, we'd really appreciate you bringing a chili, especially for the competition. It'll
be necessary to bring it before 6pm. That way we can make sure to get all the samples
and then we'll try our best to start eating as a church family right after that. We'll
have tables and chairs set up. But also if you'd like to bring a game or cards or something
like that, it's just going to be a night of fellowship and fun. And so people usually
just sit around, talk, play games and have some fun. Hopefully the weather will be nice
and we can have our back area open as well. So if you'd like to come and join us for that
evening, we'll be hanging out here. November 16th is the Miami Soul Hunting Marathon. Please make
sure you are putting on the calendar if you want to go. Also, if you can't go but you'd just like
to pray for us, we really appreciate that, that everything would just go smoothly. November 24th
is the ordination of Brother Dylan Oz for a new church, Anchor Baptist Church. And so it's a really,
really exciting time. And this has been a very long time coming. It's been a plan that we've had
in place for about a year. And so we're definitely very excited to get to this point. And better is
the end thereof than the beginning, right? So looking forward to that. Make sure you're praying
for him. I'm just kind of curious, is anybody planning to go up there for the Oklahoma City thing?
Okay, just trying to get an idea. I think that we might end up having some food and stuff. So I just
want to kind of have a rough idea. It's really hard because you guys don't RSVP all the time,
and so I'm just trying to get some kind of idea. I'll probably ask again on Sunday and even when
we get a little bit closer, but we're really looking forward to that, and so please we pray
for them. On the back, we have the congratulations to Matt and Sierra Ili on the birth of Lazarus
Paul. He was born on the 17th, 2 30 a.m., eight pounds, one ounce, 19 and a half inches long.
Congratulations to them. And then our prayer list. We've been praying for the Niamh's grandmother,
for her vision, health and salvation. We've been praying for the Miss Carlson's mother,
Rebecca's health as well. Also Miss Miller has a friend whose mom also is struggling with cancer.
We've been praying for her. We've been praying for Brother Scott for his parents' health. We've
been praying for the Garcia's daughter, Krista, who's pregnant. Also been praying for the Foley's
for their visa. We've been praying for the Caputo's. Brother Caputo, he has a back issue.
We just pray that he would have a speedy recovery. Praying for Brother Jimmy for
his sister-in-law, who also has cancer. Also, Brother Foley has a co-worker who's infant.
Do you know what's going on with that exactly? Just, okay, just very sick. Okay, so just pray
for, okay, she's pretty premature and she's just very sick. So just pray for her. Also,
we've been praying for Brother Roger's mother, who's having surgery on the first. And then,
please pray for the first, who, unfortunately, their grandfather had just recently passed away.
And so, we'll say a quick word of prayer for our church family now. Thank you, Heavenly Father,
so much for this church. Thank you so much for this evening. I pray that you just please be with
all these expecting ladies. Please just help them with their children's development. Please give
them a timely birth. I pray that you would also just bless our church family that's struggling
right now with sickness and illness. I pray that you just help them. If possible, just give them
a full recovery. Please give them patience during this time of tribulation. I pray that you would
just give favor unto our church family that needs this in their job or needs this for their travel.
I pray that you'd also just be with those who've lost loved ones, that you could comfort them,
that you would give them opportunity to minister to others, and I pray that you would just continue
to use our church as a bright and shining light in such a dark world. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
We're going to sing our next song, 146. It's in your special handouts, Psalm 146.
Go around everyone. We're going to turn in our Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 10. Ecclesiastes
chapter 10. Ecclesiastes chapter 10. The Bible reads, "Dead flies cause the ointment of the
apothecary to send forth a stinking savor. So doth a little folly with him that is in reputation
for wisdom and honor. A wise man's heart is at his right hand, but a fool's heart is at his left.
Yea, also when he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom faileth him. And he sayeth to
everyone that he is a fool. If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place,
for yielding pacifyeth great offenses. 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. He that diggeth
a pit shall fall into it, and whoso breaketh and hedge, a serpent shall bite him. Whoso removeeth
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 labor of the foolish wearieth 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 the son of nobles,
and thy princes eat in due season, for strength and not for drunkenness. By much slothfulness,
the building decayeth, and through idleness of the hands, the house droppeth through. A feast
is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry, but money answereth 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 the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter. Let us pray. Heavenly Father,
Lord, thank you for Ecclesiastes 10. I just pray that you bless Pastor Shelley,
fill him with your Holy Spirit, to preach your word unto us. Help us to have a soft heart,
to hear your word and apply it in our lives. Pray us in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen. Ecclesiastes 10 verse 1, the Bible says, "Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary
to sin for the stinking savor. So doth the little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and
honor." And so God is constantly using carnal truths to expound spiritual truths and the idea
that you could have a great ointment that has a great fragrance that is ruined by just a tiny
little fly. And that tiny little fly can ruin and spoil a great storehouse of ointment or something
very precious. And it's kind of a similar scenario here that he's bringing up how a man who could be
a very wise person, could have built a great reputation for themselves, could potentially
have worked really hard to get to the place that he's in, could screw it all up very easily.
And that just a little bit of foolishness could destroy him. Now the word folly is mentioned in
the Bible several different places and it's all over the map as far as what kind of things we're
talking about. So in some cases folly is in a very extreme foolishness. In other cases it can be kind
of a more minor situation and I think in this particular passage it's even just saying a little
folly. So it's just saying just a little bit of foolishness, just a little bit of stupidity could
cause someone to destroy their own reputation and could destroy their ability to keep working or
accomplishing things. Now I'm not going to have you turned all these places. Maybe you go to,
if you want to go to Proverbs 5 and we'll look, I'll let you look at a couple of those with me.
But in Genesis 34, the first time that folly is mentioned is in the context of fornication
and it's in the context of lying with Dinah, lying with his daughter. And so the folly is
committing fornication. In Deuteronomy 22, folly is also mentioned as fornication.
In Joshua 7, the folly is Achan taking of the accursed thing. In Judges 19, the folly is the
sodomites and what they did unto that woman in the book of Judges. First Samuel 25, folly is a name
given unto Nabal who is a son of Belial. And it's like his name is literally folly. No one can speak
to him. When you look at second Samuel 13, Amnon forcing Tamar is described as folly. And I just
want to say like at this point it's folly is really bad. I mean it's just like fornication, sodomites,
you know forcing a woman, just like horrible things. Reprobate, sons of Belial. Job 42 though
brings up that what the friends had said unto Job was folly. And so you could say that speaking the
wrong things about God is folly. Fornication, taking the curse of things, sodomites, forcing women,
speaking the wrong things about God, teaching false doctrine is folly. Psalm 49, folly is rich
people thinking that their money and fame will last. Now Proverbs 5, we can look at a couple
passages here. Look at Proverbs chapter 5 verse 21. And again, I went through a lot of that quickly,
but in verse 21 the Bible says, "For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord and he pondered
all his goings. His own iniquity shall take the wicked himself and he shall behold him with the
cords of his sins. He shall die without instruction and in the greatness of his folly he shall go
astray." So this is someone that's basically just destroying themselves with sin. Chapter 14, look
at verse number eight. Chapter 14, look at verse number eight. "The wisdom of the prudent is to
understand his way, but the folly of fools is deceit." So now it's just kind of a broad mention
of deceit. Look at verse 18 in the same chapter. It says, "The simple inherit folly, but the prudent
are crowned with knowledge." Look at verse 29. "He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding,
but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly." Go to chapter 18 and look at verse 13. Go to
chapter 18 and look at verse 13. The Bible says, "He that answereth a matter before he heareth it,
it is folly and shame unto him." So I don't want you to get the wrong idea that the word folly is
always just this extreme sin or extreme negative thing because here it's also bringing up the idea
of just simply answering a matter before you even hear it that that would be a foolish thing to do
and really when we look at the root word of folly it's coming from just being foolish. The word fool
is mentioned in the Bible hundreds and hundreds of times in all manner of situation. If you look at
chapter 26, look at verse number four, it's going to bring up another example and we're just kind of
looking at a lot of things that the Bible calls silly. The Bible is saying committing fornication
is dumb. You shouldn't do it. The Bible is saying, you know, obviously these grievous sins are sin as
well, but hey, being deceitful, being simple, being hasty of spirit, answering a matter before
you hear it, these are also folly. Proverbs 26 verse four, answer not a fool according to his folly,
lest thou also be like on him. Here's something, contending with trolls is folly. And if you want
to be perceived as a wise man, perhaps you shouldn't argue with trolls all the time.
Perhaps you shouldn't always give in to all of their requests. You know, someone that didn't do
this was Nehemiah, who's being constantly pestered by Sanviah and Tobiah and Gisham and all these
different people. And he's just saying like, I don't, I'm too busy for you guys. Like I don't
need to talk to you guys. I'm not interested in what you have to say. And Jesus Christ didn't
answer every single question that came to him. In fact, he pretty much answered their questions
with a question. But many times they would ask him things and he didn't respond. He was brought
before Herod and accused of all kinds of different things and he didn't answer any of those things.
And so we have to be careful that we don't fall into this trap of feeling like we always have to
defend ourselves, that we always have to explain every single thing, that we always have to contend
with every single foolish person. There are many people that are just professional time wasters
and all they want to do is just irritate the fire out of you and what irritates the fire out of
every normal person is giving a reasonable factual answer and then they're just still arguing with it
and you're just like what's wrong with you but you have to realize it's called a troll okay
and we just have to be careful not to feed the trolls you know we've had protests in the past
and we could always have them again in the future you know just ignore those people
because there's no point in answering a fool in his following then you're like him then you're
like that person so really the best way to fight trolls the best way to fight haters and false
accusers is to ignore them it's always been my policy it always will be my fault and again
every once in a while sometimes we need to defend ourselves sometimes we put out an answer and it's
frustrating but generally speaking we should default to we're not going to answer foolish
questions the bible says to avoid foolish questions the bible makes it clear a man that
is in heretic after first and second ammunition reject the bible's making it abundantly clear
when uh you're in the presence of a foolish man and they'll perceive us in him not the lips of
knowledge go from the presence of a foolish man is what it's saying maybe i kind of said it both
ways there but it's basically saying hey when you realize this guy isn't saying things that are wise
isn't sincere whatever you're just supposed to depart from that person that's just a lot of
there's a lot of bible on that and a wise person realizes not everybody can be won over not every
person can be reasoned with not every person is going to agree with you and sometimes we just have
to be content just moving on with our lives and not feeling like we have to answer every single
thing go through to jeremiah chapter 23 go to jeremiah chapter 23 now obviously someone that
wants to be saved we want to open our mouths boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel
someone that wants to ask some silly question of could god build a rock so big that he
can't lift it it's like you know that's not there's really not a lot of point in answering
that type of a question and you know when you run into people out soul winning that don't even
believe in god exists and don't even believe the bible and they just want to ask really weird dumb
atheistic questions it's probably just a waste of time you know you probably just move on and not
sit there and look your soul winning partner is not going to perceive you to be really wise when
you're sitting here contending with a fool they're going to be like this guy's got a little folly
this guy is kind of annoying and look i've heard stories people going out soul winning and one of
the soul winners is arguing with a guy for 40 minutes about the shroud of turin and you're like
you know you're kind of losing your reputation you know you're kind of making yourself look
like a foolish person when you're doing something like this okay and so we want to make sure that
we're not acting like that jeremiah 23 look what it says in verse 13 and i have seen folly in the
prophets of samaria they prophesied and bail and caused my people israel to err so again false
prophets false preaching um we'll go to two more go to second gremlins chapter 11 i'm just kind of
showing you some of the mentions of folly in the bible and how it's kind of a broad broad application
because it's just really just saying doing something that's not smart not wise it's foolish in general
considered folly the apostle paul in second corinthians chapter number 11 it's kind of an
interesting chapter in the bible because he kind of exercises himself in folly to help us understand
what folly is but he says in verse one notice this would god you could bear with me a little
in my folly and indeed bear with me so if you want to understand second corinthians chapter number 11
you have to understand that verse because that verse he's saying like everything i'm about to say
is dumb everything i'm about to say is foolish everything i'm about to say you're going to have
to bear with me for a moment because it's kind of uncomely it's not something that i should really
normally be saying but i need to say it to just kind of make a certain point and what he's doing
is he's defending himself if you understand second corinthians the apostle paul is being accused of
being a reprobate i mean you have to understand the context like people are just like falsely
accusing the apostle paul of not being a real apostle not really being a minister being a
reprobate and he's like you should know that i'm not a reprobate what about you guys okay and
in an in an attempt to defend himself he basically just kind of points out every great thing that
he's ever done but you know some people would take that wrong and say like oh paul's being
prideful but he said at the very beginning hey caveat this isn't something we should normally
do i'm doing this just for a specific reason he's trying to defend himself and you know i'm sure
this chapter is in the bible for a reason i'm sure there's going to be other men occasionally
that have to every once in a while defend themselves and you know what it always looks bad
when you're defending yourself and it's it's not something you should normally do you shouldn't
normally toot your own horn or brag about yourself or say these things but obviously there's a time
and a place though there could be a situation where someone's back into a corner has to defend
themselves and so they just explain very clearly hey this is what's actually going on but generally
speaking bragging about yourself is a bad move it's folly we shouldn't be going around singing
our own praises we should let another man praise thee and not thine own lips okay so according to
the bible we shouldn't be going around telling everybody how wonderful we are how great we are
looking down upon others that is folly okay second timothy chapter three one more i'll show you here
second timothy chapter number three and look at verse number nine second timothy chapter three
look at verse number nine the bible says but they shall proceed no further for their folly
shall be manifest unto all men as theirs also was now this is talking about janus and jamborees is
talking about false prophets talking about false teachers and it's saying that those people that
are bad and wicked they will eventually expose themselves through their folly through their
folly will figure out oh wow this guy wasn't who he said he was there was something wrong with this
particular individual go to Proverbs 14 go back to Proverbs and here's here's an example of when
someone just started to expose their folly is when a when a pastor gets up and says that he
believes that the earth is flat which you know that was Tyler Doka okay and it was just like
it was like instantly I knew this guy's a bad person and not only that then he started teaching
that Christians are going to go to the lake of fire for a thousand years then he just started
teaching like all kinds of other weird stuff I think his church like failed and then it came
back and then the guy started saying that he's literally Jesus I mean like you can't get any
more insane than that okay and now his folly has made manifest the guy is such a a psychopath
he's literally tattooed alpha and omega on his face because he said he was Jesus he was literally
even measuring his head as the temple of God because he said like his body is some other temple
he was he was trying to gaslight people so hard to say that all of history is completely wrong
and that Jesus has never even come that he was like the first coming of Jesus and it was just
it was just like wow this person is just a complete fool I mean obviously an antichrist and a demonic
false prophet is going to split hell wide open but just it was just he was in the eyes of some
people a pastor he's serving God and then all of a sudden just totally just folly just pours out
ruins his reputation and you know it's incredible about that entire situation and this is something
I think everybody needs to pay attention to and think about. Kyler Doka got up and preached a
very clear gospel message. Kyler Doka said unequivocally that salvation was a free gift
by faith once saved always saved King James only every single one of our talking points
and then the guy literally turned himself into Jesus. Meaning what? That reprobates can repeat
the true gospel okay and I know that that's some people just think that that's not possible or
something like that. No it's possible that some people have feigned words making merchandise of
you that some people can know the truth and not believe it and just say it and they're really not
even sincere at all. I mean even Judas Iscariot he never really preached heresy but he was a
devil the entire time. I mean don't you think if he's walking around teaching like work salvation
the other disciples would have probably figured that out pretty quickly but you know there are
certain people that will creep into churches that can literally say the right gospel verbally but
they don't believe it they're not very sincere they don't even get it they're not filled with
the holy spirit and that that one example should just confirm to you that that's possible let alone
there's many other examples of this that we could look to but i mean who's going to argue with me
and say that that guy's saved the guy who's a literal anti-christ who literally put alpha and
omega on his face you're going to tell me that that guy was saved and still saved you just don't
even believe the bible at that point okay but that was some folly and you know here's other things
people could do whatever you know you you're a great guy you're serving god you're loving the
lord but then you get drunk you can get drunk one time and you get in a drunk driving accident
and you could totally just ruin your reputation you just totally ruin your life you can commit
adultery one time and ruin your life or you could just be prideful and that pride could just
overwhelm all the reputation and all the things that people think positive about you the bible
says in proverbs 14 verse 3 in the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride but the lips of the
wise shall preserve them so we need to make sure that we're not just letting pride just come out
of our mouth go backwards to psalm 38 i want to go another verse here and i'm taking a little
bit of time on this verse but honestly ecclesiastes chapter 10 it's kind of a hard passage to go
through because there's a lot of really famous verses a lot of really powerful verses in this
book but this book is really emphasizing the importance of wisdom versus foolishness and
how we need to make make it make it clear to ourselves that we should strive very carefully
to be wise and to avoid all foolishness that we can because it's so destructive foolishness is
destructive pride is destructive things are so much easier to be destroyed than built building
things takes a lot of time a lot of effort a lot of energy you know building a great marriage takes
a lot of time effort energy building a family and having children and raising those children
takes a lot of effort a lot of energy building a church takes a lot of effort a lot of energy
building a business takes a lot of effort a lot of energy but you know what it's really easy to
destroy any of those things in just a moment you can destroy all of those things just quickly
and so that's why it's it's something we have to be careful with and making sure that we're not
allowing pride to destroy us in any of these areas you know people that drink alcohol are
very prideful and they also many times think that they can just drink i can drink and drive and i'm
not gonna have a problem but man it just takes one slip up you know i can handle it i'm tough
hey you know i can flirt with people and i can go you know hang out with the opposite gender and
i can go to the bar nothing's gonna bad's gonna happen you know i can have a close relationship
with people that are not my spouse you know don't do that just you know just stay away from that
and of course being prideful is is also a big danger psalm 38 look at verse four the bible says
for mine iniquities are gone over my head as in heavy burden that are too heavy for me my wounds
stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness i wanted to go to this verse because notice that
parallel because when we think about that verse one again it's talking about the dead flies
are causing the stinking saver and it's kind of ruining your reputation as the metaphor notice my
wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness the bible's saying our sins stink
our sins cause us to corrupt or to rot or to decompose or to destroy and that's why we have
to be careful with sin it says in verse six i am troubled i am bowed down greatly i go mourning
all the day long now here's the thing none of us are ever going to be perfect we all still have
some foolishness inside of us and especially a child children foolishness is bound in the heart
of a child's what the bible says but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him so if you
don't use the rod well you're just leaving a lot of foolishness in their heart that you could
potentially get out for them but even an adult is still going to probably have some levels of
foolishness we're still going to sin we're still going to make mistakes and that causes problems
but you know what praise God that he does not expect his servants to be perfect but we have
to understand there's still always a consequence when we make bad decisions when we do foolish
things and sometimes it can harm or hurt our reputation verse 12 this is the psalmist saying
they also that seek after my life lay snares for me and they that seek my heart speak mischievous
things and imagine deceits all the day long but I as a deaf man heard not and I was as a dumb man
that openeth not his mouth so this person has sinned they've made mistakes and then on top of that
evil people are just constantly hoping that they die and are destroyed and speaking evil and hoping
bad things happen to them but the psalmist is saying you know what I decided to do I just decided
to ignore the haters just ignore the haters to say like I don't care I'm a dumb man and what is
dumb it's not it's not like being foolish it's being silent right or a deaf man that's someone
that can't hear dumb is that you're not talking so you're not defending yourself like we saw earlier
in the passages of answering not a fool and you're not listening to it either you know listening to
people just criticize you all the time can just really destroy you mentally you know you don't
you don't want to be around people that are constantly talking negative and talk especially
about yourself or your family or your spouse you know don't allow your in-laws to talk trash on
your spouse to you don't allow anybody to talk trash about your spouse or you or your family
you know just say like hey i don't appreciate that i don't agree with that you know you should
always defend your spouse to everyone especially in-laws especially family and you know you should
get away from people that are attacking you and saying bad things about you look i'm not reading
this is a great psalm just read it tonight or later verse 21 forsake me not oh lord oh my god
be not far from me make haste to help me oh lord my salvation so even if you've sinned even if you
made mistakes and even if you have a bunch of haters and people attacking you you know what god
can still deliver you out of that right and of course our wounds and our our sins can stink and
they can cause problems but god can always cleanse them and fix them and you know it it's one thing
to have the dead flies stinking up the ointment it's another thing to just leave that as the
situation it's like okay let's scoop out the flies and start over right adjust me and fall
seven times and rise it up again so it's like okay let's just get rid of the flies and fix it
right don't just continually allow this to stink up the joint and cause more problems just address
the situation and ask god for deliverance ask god to cleanse ask god to help and many times time
heals all wounds go back and do it de Clesias chapter 10 so we've got a little bit of a sample
here of some folly we want to make sure that we're avoiding flat earthers we're avoiding
drunkenness we're avoiding adultery rewarding pride we're avoiding being hasty we're avoiding
foolish questions we're avoiding haters we're avoiding false prophets we're avoiding
fornication we're avoiding all these things because they can destroy us and they can destroy our
reputation they can destroy who we are they can destroy the work that we're doing verse two a
wise man's heart is as right hand but a fool's heart at his left now this verse has been used
to teach that left-handed people are evil i can't say if that's true or not but that's not what
it's really saying okay that's not what the passage is saying i'm sure that there's you know dylan's
left-handed so that you know makes you a little nervous but no i'm just kidding um but but here's
the thing i don't think that being left-handed makes you a bad person i think what you have to
understand is that generally speaking most people are right-handed okay and being right-handed is
just natural it's normal it's right okay but in the bible there's a difference between your right
and left hand and that's just because most people are right-handed what's the difference your right
hand is typically the strongest of your hands it's the one that you're the best with it's the one
you're most skilled with it's the one that you prefer it's the one that you do the most with it's
the most significant so that's really what's being drawn out here in a sense when we think about this
verse that a wise man's heart is at his right hand what does that mean his heart is his is a
primary thing to him it's important to him it's something that he's working on where if it's in
his left hand it's not as important it's more carefree it's not something he's taking it seriously
and so that's kind of what is being alluded to here in this verse but i want to look at a lot of
actual other verses do i go you psalm 16 already go to psalm 16 i want to look at some verses on
this too because this is another important verse i think to talk about for a moment but we have to
be very careful with our own hearts with our hearts and the bible talks a lot about this subject as
well and if we don't want to be guilty of that foolishness we need to consider our heart and
we need to have our heart in our right hand not in our left hand okay now psalm 16 look at verse
eight the bible says i've set the lord always before me because he is at my right hand i shall
not be moved so talking about the significance of the right hand look at verse 11 that will show me
the path of life in the presence is fullness of joy at thy right hand there are pleasures forever
more look at psalm 20 verse six and i'm just doing a couple that are pretty close to each other psalm
20 verse six now know i that the lord saveth his anointed he will hear him from his holy heaven
with the saving strength of his right hand so again the right hand is a picture of salvation
it's a picture of strength okay psalm 108 go to 118 think about passages that talk about the lord
jesus christ sitting at the right hand of god the father okay so the right hand has this significance
of strength importance of value being something that's primary psalm 108 i want to look at verse
six again in this passage it says that thy beloved may be delivered save with thy right hand and
answer me so if if someone were drowning and you can only reach out one hand you're reaching out
that right hand because you want to do the best that you can whereas if you were kind of giving
them the left hand it's like it's not as important it's not as significant you're not giving it as
much attention you're it's not as serious to you now go over to journey chapter six so when we put
this in context of our hearts we want to make sure that we are making it clear that what we do with
our heart it should be important our heart should be important it should be primary we we need to
strengthen our hearts okay that would be what we're talking about with the right hand the left hand
is like not not caring about our heart not thinking about it not making it is significant of a deal
with it okay. Deuteronomy chapter six look at verse five and thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thine heart and with all thy soul with all thy might this is mentioned many times in the
new testament as well we're supposed to love God with all of our heart so that means we should
actually take our hearts seriously our heart shouldn't be in our left hand it should be in
our right hand because what we do with our heart is so important and you know your heart is going
to be affected by the decisions that you make. Go through it to Proverbs 23 the Bible says trust
in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding so the Bible is also
telling us we need to put all of our heart into Jesus Christ we need to put all of our heart into
the word of God we need to trust with all of our heart in the Lord and put our confidence in him
and again what you do is going to affect your heart where you go what relationships you have
if you go to church if you're reading your Bible if you pray if you love people what kind of job
you have what kind of clothes you wear I don't care what you want to bring up your heart will
be affected your heart is affected by the decisions that you make and the Bible is saying that we're
supposed to give all of our heart unto God and under the Lord Jesus Christ and this would be a
wise man putting his heart in his right hand making it a priority making it important realizing this
there's something to this we need to just we need to just think that our heart doesn't matter
or our affections don't matter because in many cases our affections are driven by the decisions
that we make and where we go and what we look at and how we interact and the thoughts that we have
The Bible says in Proverbs 23 verse 17, "Let not thine heart envy sinners,
but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long." What could you possibly do? You could
decide to just put your heart in your left hand, meaning you're not really thinking about it,
you're not really caring, and then what you do is you just daydream all day envying sinners,
envying famous people, envying rich people, coveting thy neighbor's house, coveting thy
neighbor's wife, coveting thy neighbor's goods, right? Just all day, or you're daydreaming about
things that you wish you had, or you could, "Man, I just wish I was more popular or more famous,
or I wish I could make this decision differently, or just I wish I had all of these different
things." I mean, we could just do that all day long. We could just be envious all day long,
but the Bible is saying don't let your heart do that. Put your heart in your right hand and say,
"No, you're going to love God today. No, you're going to love the Lord Jesus Christ today. No,
you're going to bring these imaginations and captivity to the things of Christ and you're
not going to allow your heart to just dream all day envious thoughts. The Bible is making it clear
that the wise man is actually taking control of his hearts and his affections. You know, many times
when people have inappropriate relationships, it's because they weren't careful with their heart.
They allowed their heart to get attached to someone they shouldn't. They allowed their heart
to get attached to some thing or some possession or some hobby or some whore or some disgusting
thing and that took away their heart. Solomon gave his heart unto his wives. We see many people
giving their heart away to false gods, giving their heart away to money. The love of money is
the root of all evil and the foolish person is putting his heart in his left hand and he's
putting in his right hand money, riches, envy, whores, whatever and he's just destroying his heart.
He's destroying himself. We need to be careful with our hearts. Go over to 2 Peter chapter 2,
I'll look at another one with you, but the Bible says in Psalm 131, "Lord, my heart is not haughty
nor mine eyes lofty, neither do I exercise myself in great matters or in things too high for me."
We could sit here and try to figure out the secrets of the universe, but we're probably
never going to figure them out, so maybe we should just focus on the things that we can deal with.
It's like, hey, Elon, instead of trying to figure out how to go to Mars, maybe you could
just figure out how to make Twitter work, okay? Maybe you could actually make Twitter a free
speech platform. Maybe that would actually help. Maybe you should figure out what the meaning of
life is. Maybe you should figure out what it means to be saved. Maybe you should figure out
why you even exist. Yet, there's so many people trying to exercise themselves in high matters
and things that don't even pertain to them that they'll never figure out, that they could never
understand, instead of focusing on the things that they do know. You know, hey, we can live pretty
simple lives, and we don't even have to be that wise concerning evil. The Bible even tells us not
to be wise concerning evil. We're supposed to be simple concerning evil. But I just want to understand
every conspiracy theory. I mean, there's people, I mean, I'm not trying to pick on anybody in this
room, but there's probably some people in here, they want to just deep dive into every conspiracy,
every evil thing, know all the players, know everything they do in dark secret. But it's
like, aren't we supposed to be simple concerning evil? And are you just, what are you exercising
your heart in anyways? It's like, I know every single ritual of the Freemasons. You know,
there's, there's like this one guy that that would be every sermon, basically, every sermons,
like about Freemasonry. And he talked in such a dogmatic way, like, this is exactly what they do
on the 17th night of this, whatever. And I was thinking, like, how do you know that? Were you
there? Are you going to the lodge meetings? Like, why are you just so authoritative about these
secret clubs? And you'll notice something about Freemasonry. When you go past the building,
no windows. And so it's like, why, why am I going to exercise my heart and all these things that
are evil, all these things that are dark, all these conspiracies? I mean, frankly speaking,
the more you know about the Clintons, the less likely you're going to live. You know, I mean,
like, that's, that's why it's like simple concerning evil. Some things we just don't want to know. We
don't always want to know the depths of Satan. We don't always want to know everything that's out
there and we need to keep our heart because sometimes when we learn about really evil,
wicked things, it like, it kind of like ruins us. It can make you just feel gross. It can make you
feel weird. You like look at the world differently. And you know, I don't want to just think evil of
everybody all the time. Like I try a lot of times to just think the best of people and to think on
pure things. And yeah, that bites me sometimes, but you know, I'd rather have that than just
constantly thinking all these evil thoughts and, and knowing all the dark things that are going on.
You know, we should be thinking on things that are pure according to the Bible, not, not allowing,
and you know, certain movies, music, all kinds of stuff. They're pretty, some of them are pretty
dark, you know, and growing up, I didn't really guard my heart that much. I probably saw a lot
of things I wish I'd never seen. And you know, we should be careful, be careful little eyes,
what you see. My wife like cries when she hears that little kid song, because it's just like,
you know, we should guard our children's hearts too. Sometimes our kids are too dumb to guard
themselves. And we as parents need to guard them for them and to help protect them from some of
the evils that are out there. The Bible says, I'm going to go, I want to read one more, but
says Ecclesiastes one, I gave my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all things that
are done in the sun. So the book of Ecclesiastes, we're seeking wisdom. What does the evil people
do? Second Peter two verse 14, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin,
beguiling unstable souls. Notice this. And heart, they have exercised with covetous practices. So
notice what wicked people do. They're exercising their heart, but with covetousness, not with
godliness, not with wisdom. And so this is the guy, excuse me, putting his heart in his left hand,
not in his right hand. Not taking it seriously, not making it a priority, not strengthening it,
but actually weakening it and making it worse and destroying his own heart. The Bible says in Ezekiel
when it's talking about the two whoreish daughters, the two whore sisters, it's like how weak is your
heart? And it's basically someone that just says yes to every sin and does every horrible thing.
It's just someone who has a weak heart. Someone who has a strong heart is picturing someone that
can say no and has a lot of wisdom and has a lot of restraint. And we need to be exercising our
heart and strengthening our heart, not constantly weakening it by not taking diligence to it.
Okay, go back to Ecclesiastes chapter number 10. Go back to Ecclesiastes chapter 10.
I spent a while on those few verses, but I think they're really cornerstone verses for this chapter.
I'm not going to be spending as much time on some of these others, but these are some some big
concepts that are going to be repeated throughout this chapter. Look at verse three. "Yea also,
when he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom faileth him, and he sayeth to everyone
that he is a fool." So it's saying the foolish person can't get away with his foolishness for
long. Everybody will figure it out pretty soon. And honestly, this this fool, we know that he's
a fool because of what he says. That's how you figure out who the foolish person is. The Bible
says, I'm just reading a couple verses for you. In Proverbs 12 verse 16, "A fool's wrath is
presently known, but a prudent man covereth shame." So a fool, it's obvious that this guy's a fool.
It's obvious when he's mad, you can just tell. Look at chapter five because you're right there
in verse three. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 5.3, "For a dream coming through the multitude
of business," notice this, "and a fool's voice is known by a multitude of words." Here's the problem
for a fool is if he talks enough, we'll figure out that he's dumb. We'll actually figure out
that he's a fool. And that's one of the things I always say is like about preaching is you cannot
hide behind preaching because you have to, and again, I think that's why these false prophets
and preachers preach like 15 minute sermonets that are like they're reading because they're
so afraid of what they're going to end up saying. But if you get someone just just extemporaneously
speaking, just speaking from the heart for about an hour, you're going to learn a lot about that
person. Like out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaking. And here's the thing, if you
listen to somebody for a thousand hours, you probably can't be surprised by anything in their
life. Because of the fact that, what does it say? A fool's voice is known by a multitude of words.
You can't hide. People that believe weird things, it's going to pour out. People that are doing weird
things, it's going to come out. You can almost always tell what a person's really like if you
get a big enough sample. And that's what I'm saying, if you get thousands of hours of someone
saying a bunch of stuff, it doesn't matter what context, you'll learn almost everything
you could possibly need to know about that person. And that's good and bad, right? You listen to
someone for thousands of hours and it's just like good, good, good, good. That person's probably a
good person. If it's bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, they're just a bad person, okay? And it really
helps you to kind of identify a tree because the Bible says a tree is known by its fruit.
And the Bible says, you know what that is? It's the words that are coming out of your mouth.
How do I even know someone's saved? By what they say, folks. I can't look at the outward appearance
and identify if this person is a righteous person or not. And in many cases, the world just looks,
they all look bad, okay? But when they say they believe in Jesus Christ, oh, okay, this person is
saved. This person believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. Whereas a fool, you can tell, hey, when
this person's telling me that Jesus is black, and they're telling me that Jesus is Tyler Doka,
and they're telling me that Jesus is someone that's never existed. I mean, there's some real fools
out there. It's on, especially if you go on Twitter spaces, okay, that's a nightmare place.
Go back to chapter 10, we'll look at verse four, but people say the weirdest stuff.
People say, oh, Jesus never existed. And it's just like, sorry, like that's a denial of everything.
Like literally everything. It's literally 2024. Where do you think that's from? Like, I'm just
thinking like, you realize like every construct of our entire society is like evolving around
Jesus existence. And they're going to be like, but I don't think he exists, man. It's just like,
no, you just hate him. And it's like, it's funny because there was somebody saying this to me and
I said that. And then they just start cussing Jesus out. And then another person was like,
I feel like you just proved his point. It doesn't seem like you deny his existence. It seems like
you just hate him. Okay. Verse four, it says this, if the spirit of the ruler rise up against the
leave not by place for yielding pacify great offenses. I think this is, you know, in this
chapter is going to give us a lot of just tips and wisdom here. This is just, I believe in an idea
of if you have your boss, if a ruler, maybe the government, if someone's upset at you or they
believe you transgressed, instead of running away from the issue, it's saying just stay where you're
at and just yield. Just, just stay and just yield. Okay. So whatever authority, if the authority
is wanting you to, is upset with you, instead of fleeing, yield. You know, "Hey, children,
don't run away from your parents. Just do whatever they say. Wives, don't run away from your
husbands. Just do whatever they say. If your boss at work is mad at you, just do whatever they say."
Why? Because yielding pacified great offenses. Don't run away from problems. Just yield to
authority is what the Bible is essentially saying. And you know, even, even church authority could be
this way, right? If, if, if somehow a leader in the church is got an issue with you, just yield.
Don't run away. Just yield. That's what the Bible is saying. Verse five, "There is an evil which I
have seen under the sun as an heir which proceeded 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." So he's kind of talking about a backwards world, an upside down world. And boy,
our culture is really kind of emanating this thing that's happening, where we see Folly being set up
and praised and glorified, where we have literal men dressing like women that are in high positions
of our government. I mean, nothing could be more Folly than such a thing. And then you have good
men, honest men, smart men being taken low. I mean, you know, obviously, I don't know that he's
necessarily saved, but I really like Owen Troyer, and he's pretty smart. He was thrown in prison,
and then we have trannies being promoted in our government. And it's just like, what's wrong?
We have Ron Paul, who can't seem to get elected or be put in a high position of office. And then
we have AOC as a literal person in our government, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Okay. I mean, this chick
is a literal bartender. It says, I've seen servants upon horses. She's a bartender. And then she's in
one of the most high ranking positions of our government. This is folly. He's saying, no, no,
it's evil. He said, this is an evil, which I have seen under the sun. AOC being in our government
is evil. She should be a servant. She should be a bartender like she was. It's disgusting how our
country is literally lifting up and putting in literal whores and servants in high ranking
positions under government. And Kamala is no better, folks. Kamala Harris, if she becomes
our president, is one of the greatest evils that's ever happened to America. And I don't know if it's
going to happen. I have no idea. I have no prediction. Anything's on the table. And frankly
speaking, I'll just be honest with you, I don't really even care what happens in the election.
It's honestly like meaningless to me. And I know that probably scares some people.
But I'm just, you know, the Bible says all things work together for good to them that love God,
number one. Number two, our country is just on a bobsled to hell. It doesn't really matter to me
which puppet we put up there on the stage. Okay. And I can see pros and cons to both. Like to me,
if Kamala becomes president, maybe the pro is that people will finally realize how wicked, evil,
and dumb our government is, and that there's no hope in it, and that maybe they should just get
into church. Now, what's the con? Everything else. Okay. Like literally, like you have a woman
running our government. Okay. It's just a complete sham. Our government, like there's no chance to
even say that it's not the biggest farce sham the emperor has no clothes on of a government that we
have. I mean, they could probably literally just start banning the constitution and bringing
communism. I don't want to fear monger. I'm just saying like, I don't know what they would do if
they put her as president. They're basically saying we're going to do whatever we want.
I mean, frankly speaking, if Trump becomes elected, well, you know, obviously that sounds better than
the communist. Okay. And like to me, it's like, when I look at Kamala, it's all bad. When I look
at Trump, it's like bad with a little bit of good mixed in. Okay. And so, you know, I obviously,
plus here's like the main reason it would be nice for him to win is just to see all these liberals
crying about it, which has nothing, like it doesn't benefit me monetarily. It's not a spiritual
thing. I guess I just would find it hilarious. Okay. So there's my pro, right? We're probably
going to go into world war three with Israel either way. All right. We're probably going to
still have all of our banking institutions owned by Jews and have tons of usury. We're probably
still going to have high levels of inflation. We're still going to probably have economic issues.
We're still going to have a fake media. We're still going to have a congress that still fills
a bunch of evil satanic people that are going to pass bad laws in our government and line their
own pockets and are filled bribes. So that's what I'm saying. Like it doesn't really matter
that much to me because I'm going to, you know what I'm going to do after the election, go to
church on the weekend and go soul winning and just keep reading my Bible and just keep doing
whatever I can. And people are going to get mad at me thinking that I should do something else.
But hey, I'm a preacher of the gospel. I'm not a politician. I'm not going to get elected.
I don't want to get elected. I'm sure that they would, I mean, if they're trying to kill Trump,
I can't even imagine a fundamental Baptist. Okay. They will be freaking out. Okay. They will be
terrified. There's no way I could make it, you know, physically. So I didn't want to try, but I,
you know, I can make it right now in the house of God. You know, God's still preserving me and
giving me life and giving me an opportunity. So, but our world is psychopath. I mean, it's, it's,
it's an upside down world. And that's what Solomon is saying. There's an evil, which I've seen under
the sun when you're setting up fools in your kingdom. And this is what's, this is what's sad,
though, is these people, they think that they're winning or like they're accomplishing something,
or it's like going to be beneficial to them, but they're all going to be losers out of it too.
You know, you know who wins in communism? No one. Everyone loses. Okay, you know who wins when you
put fools and power in the government? No one. Everyone loses. And they just don't, they just
don't realize it. They don't realize that they're basically cutting off their own legs and that
they're basically destroying themselves. And it's just a great evil and it just destroys everything,
destroys society, destroys good works. And man, one sinner can destroy much good like Kamala Harris.
Look at verse eight. "He that dig of the pit shall fall into it, and whoso breaketh in hedge,
a serpent shall bite him. Whoso remove his stones shall be hurt therewith, and he that cleave with
wood shall be endangered thereby." But I was just saying, you know, we shouldn't be plotting the
destruction of others and laying all these traps and trying to destroy people. You know, we should
be careful that we just avoid these things. Removing stones, this is like a picture of like, you're
got a big tower, you got a big building, and you're taking the stones out, well that thing
might fall down on you. That Jenga might fall on you. Or you're cleaving wood, you're chopping
that tree, well now you're in danger because that tree could fall down and it could fall down on
you. So that's why we shouldn't be a destructive force. We should be a force for good. This is
mentioned in Psalm. He made a pit and digged it and it's fallen into the ditch, which he made.
The Bible says, "Who so dig of the pit shall fall therein, and he that roll of the stone,
it will return upon him." Look at verse 10. "If the iron be blunt and he do not wet the edge,
"then must be put to more strength,
"but wisdom is profitable to direct."
This is a great verse.
You could probably preach a little sermon on it,
but the idea that I constantly hear in the workforce
that embodies this proverb or this ecclesiastical saying
is to work smarter, not harder.
And that is a philosophy I live by,
and I try my hardest to always identify
is there a better way to do this?
Is there a more efficient way to do this?
Is there a quicker way to do this?
Because a lot of times we spend just way too much time,
effort, energy accomplishing something
that can be done much quicker, much more efficiently.
And if you wanna be a great employee,
you should be constantly thinking about
how you can improve the processes
and the workforce and the workplace
by working smarter and not always harder.
And when you're doing any task, we should always think,
what is the quickest way to solve this problem?
Or what is the order of operations?
And sometimes it takes planning to do things efficiently
and do things effectively
instead of just trying to figure them out.
And so we need to always make sure
that we're getting more skills,
that we're thinking about what we're doing.
I mean, it's saying, hey, take time,
just stop what you're doing, sharpen your blade,
and then you're gonna actually cut the tree down faster.
So what would be an example of this?
Hey, stop working, start planning for a moment,
plan and get the right idea,
and then just execute that idea.
Or hey, you wanna make more money in the workforce?
Instead of working 80 hours a week at some low income job,
learn some skills and work 40 hours
and make even more money potentially.
Or in your workplace, constantly be identifying like,
hey, is there a position that I could be moving up to?
What does it take to get there?
What kind of skills do I need?
Maybe I need to put myself on pause, figure that out.
We should be constantly thinking,
how can I make more money more effectively,
more efficiently for our employer, and our workplace?
As I was working in software development,
I always use this as an example, just because it's easy for me,
but I would always look at where I was.
Maybe I'm one year in, five years in, whatever, 10 years in.
I would look at the next stage.
I would just say, OK, I'm at three years.
What does a five-year job look like?
Someone that has five years' experience,
what is it that they want?
And I would look, and I would look at all the skills
that they were wanting.
And I would say, hey, here's a job that wants five years'
experience, and they want this skill, this skill, this skill
that I don't have.
So I thought, the next two years,
I need to be getting those skills.
So then whenever I get to that five-year mark,
I can then now apply for that type of a position.
And I'm ready, and I'm prepared.
And then I can move up, or I can find another job
or another position.
And you know what, I think that works in every industry.
That's not just limited to mine.
Think about jobs that you would want in the future
in your industry, in your field,
and say, what do I not have that they want?
And then make a plan to get there,
and then you can get there.
And work smarter, not harder.
Don't always just think like,
I guess I need to put more hours in.
Sometimes you need to put more mind in.
And let's be honest, who makes more money,
the white collar or the blue collar?
The white collar because they're using their brain,
not just their bra.
Now again, you can make a lot of money in blue collar.
But typically the people that make a lot of money
in the blue collar, they wear a blue and white collar.
So they basically, they're a plumber,
but they own their own plumbing business.
Or they're electrician,
but they own their own electrician thing.
And you know, one of the secrets
that my management professor always taught me is like,
the quickest way to personal wealth
is owning your own business in America.
And that's just kind of the reality.
But it takes a lot of effort, a lot of energy,
a lot of focus, a lot of tireless nights
and stuff like that.
But those are the ways to improve your situation.
Look at verse 11.
"Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment
and the 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 a fool of words.
A man cannot tell what shall be
and what shall be after him who can tell him."
So it's kind of, again,
what we talked about in the first part of this sermon.
These fools, notice it said in verse 14,
a fool also is full of words.
I mean, these guys just love to hear themselves talk
and they love to just say things that are so silly,
so foolish, and they don't even know what they're saying.
It says the beginning of the words of his mouth
is foolishness.
The end, it's mischievous.
It's just crazy what these people are saying.
But what is the contrast?
Verse 12, the words of a wise man's mouth are gracious.
So wise people are gracious.
Fools are not gracious.
Fools have hatred, pride, envy,
and destruction on their lips.
Wise people are very kind, gracious, merciful type people.
The first part of this, surely the serpent
will bite that enchantment.
You gotta think like about a snake charmer.
They're like playing a flute or whatever
and the snake's, do do, or whatever,
and the snake's kind of dancing or whatever.
He's basically saying like as soon as you stop
playing that flute, the snake will probably just bite you.
It'll probably just attack you, okay?
And it's just basically like without a distraction,
without just like a TV or something,
the fool's just like, oh.
He's just gonna end up saying really dumb things.
And it's just saying that hey,
if you don't keep this person in the cage,
if you don't keep this person subdued,
they're gonna hurt you.
Not only will serpents hurt you,
babblers will hurt you.
Foolish people will hurt you.
What does this look like?
A babbler is someone that will just say
everything that's on their mind,
everything that's in their heart,
everything that they've heard.
A wise man has discretion.
A wise man does not repeat
every single thing that he hears.
Be careful who you make friends with
because some people are just babblers.
Some people will literally repeat
every single thing that you say.
And not only will they repeat it,
they'll change it
and it won't even be what you actually said.
It'll be something even completely different from that
and then it'll come back to hurt you,
harm you, and bite you.
So you know what, we need to be careful
that we're not hanging out with babblers.
They are dangerous.
The Bible says a prudent man can sealeth knowledge
but the heart of fools proclaimeth foolishness.
So a smart person, a wise person,
a prudent person doesn't say everything,
doesn't reveal everything.
Fools, they love to just put everything out there
and just say everything.
It's like a couple years ago,
some guy just records a phone call of me
and then just puts like this two hour phone call out there
thinking that it's gonna make him look good or something.
And everybody's just like,
man, this guy just looks like a fool.
Whereas a smart person would be like, you know what,
maybe I shouldn't put everything out there.
Maybe everything I say isn't always smart.
But you know, that's the prudent man.
The prudent man realizes, you know,
some things should not be public.
Some things shouldn't always go out there.
Fools, let's just put it all out there.
Let's just expose everything.
You know, that is a foolish attitude.
Verse 15, the labor of the foolish
wearieth every one of them
because he knoweth not how to go to the city.
Bible says, you know, that this foolish person
basically doesn't understand how to work.
I thought of this other verse in Proverbs
as in all labor there's profit,
but the talk of the lips tended only to penury.
It's like this, the fool is just such an irritating person
to be around, and he doesn't work hard,
and he doesn't even really know how to go to the city,
which I think is a picture of like making money,
merchandise, working.
He doesn't even know what he's doing,
and that's why he's just so irritating to be around.
And so we have to be careful that we're just not
surrounding ourselves around foolish people.
Look at verse 16, woe to thee, O land,
when thy child is a king,
and thy princes eat in the morning.
Blessed art thou, O land,
when thy king is the son of nobles,
and thy princes eat and do season.
For strength, and not for drunkenness.
So again, leaders, a good leader
is not looking to be served, but to serve.
So Jesus Christ himself came not to be ministered to,
but to minister and to give his life a ransom,
is what the Bible teaches.
And so a good leader is one that's trying his best
to serve those who are under him.
Now, a leader serves differently
than the people under him, okay?
So, you know, if you're a boss at work,
how do you serve your employees?
Well, you don't do their job for them.
You don't go around on the rides with them.
You support them, you teach them, you train them,
you help them, you encourage them, right?
You're still serving them.
You're giving them money, in fact, if you're a boss, right?
But you're not gonna do their job.
So it's like, as a husband,
I should be a servant unto my wife.
How? Well, not by doing her job.
That is not how I serve my wife.
I serve my wife by bringing home the bacon.
I provide. I bring the money.
That's a service unto my wife
that she doesn't have to do, okay?
Here's another thing I do.
I encourage her. I love her.
I do things for her that she can't do for herself.
You know, we all can't scratch our own back very effectively.
You know, if you want to love someone and serve someone else,
you do the things that they can't do for themselves, right?
You love them. You encourage them.
And look, occasionally, I do, of course, help her with some of her tasks and stuff like that.
I'm not saying husbands shouldn't help their wives cook or clean or raise kids or that stuff.
We should be willing to sometimes, when I say cross the aisle, right?
We should come across the aisle and help them occasionally and help them when need be.
And that'll win you some brownie points, OK?
But I'm not going to do my wife's job.
In fact, that makes me a bad leader if I do my wife's job.
It actually makes me a bad boss if I do my employee's job.
A good boss can encourage and strengthen and train those under them to do their job effectively,
OK?
Bad bosses have to do everybody's work for them, OK?
And that's kind of how you can tell how good of a leader you are.
A good leader draws out the best out of the people underneath him, and they are happy
doing their job.
Like Solomon's servants were happy serving him.
Whereas a bad leader, people are not doing their job, they're lazy, they're uneducated,
and they don't have a desire to work hard.
That is typically a result of bad leadership, bad management.
And they're all vain.
You know, I've seen people talk about a particular podcast, Tim Poole's podcast, and he kind
of talks about how he doesn't have good employees, and they struggle to like work hard and do
all this stuff.
And I'm just thinking like, well, but who are you hiring?
Are you hiring a bunch of leftists and libertarians that want to go skate all day and drink?
I mean, it's like you looked at Twitter when Elon came in, he fired, like, I don't know,
a large percentage.
I don't know what the number is.
I've heard big numbers, like 90%.
I don't know if that's true, but I've heard that he's fired just like gigantic numbers
of people from that organization, because some people literally just showed up, went
to the coffee bar, went and checked their email, went to a meeting, and then went home.
And it was like what does this person even do, okay?
And it's like that's bad leadership, which of course these corrupt organizations that
are designed to just attack and destroy usually have bad leadership at the helm.
They probably had good leadership to build up the company the way they were, but then
they have bad people come and buy them out and destroy it all again.
But when we talk about good leadership here, when we talk about a country, we would want
a king that's going to serve us, not himself.
We wouldn't want a president that wants to just sit around and eat ice cream all day
and just go sleep all day and just have people fan leaves at his head and feed him grapes
or something like that.
That's not going to help our country.
We want someone to be a public servant, someone that's making diplomatic decisions, visiting
cities when they have destructive hurricanes, going out and making sure that the states
that need funds, that they get their funds, that our military is strong.
Putting the military, encouraging the military, not putting the military in unnecessary risk
and harm, not putting them in wars that they don't need to be in, not leaving them behind
in Afghanistan, not leaving unlimited merchandise for our enemies, not entangling ourselves
into conflicts that we shouldn't be in.
I mean, that's what kind of leader that we would want.
That's what kind of king we'd want, not one that's just waking up in the morning concerned
with what he's going to eat, but rather concerned with what he's going to do.
And, you know, as a husband, we shouldn't always look at our wife as, "How are you going
to serve me today?"
But sometimes we need to look at them as like, "How am I going to encourage her?
How am I going to do good under her?"
And, you know, a great marriage is typically when both partners are trying to serve each
other.
Now, not in the same way, in completely different ways.
But as a leader, you have to figure out, "How am I serving my subject?"
You know, with children, you got to serve your children some too.
Now, again, my children take out the trash, I don't take out the trash.
My kids do the dishes, my kids, I just say, "Go do this," they do that, like, "Hey,
I'm not their servant," in that sense, okay?
They are going to do the stuff for me.
But you know what?
How I do serve them?
I'll go play soccer with them.
I'll sit down and teach them how to read a book.
I'll sit down and I'll teach them what the Bible says.
I'll teach them how to tie their shoes.
I'll teach them how to read.
I'll sit there and encourage them and I'll support them.
I'll go to their soccer game and I'll cheer them on
and I'll give them tips and try to encourage them, right?
I'll teach them how to be a soul winner.
I'll teach them where things are in the Bible.
I'll teach them how to learn new songs.
I'll teach them how to play the piano.
So, you know, a way I'm serving them, but you know what?
They're going to take out my trash.
They're going to take up, they're going to clean my plate.
You know, they're going to do a lot of things for me
because they're my servant, but you know what?
They're happy to because I serve them and I teach them
and I encourage them and you know what?
They serve me.
and there's a reciprocal nature here,
and that's a wise king, a wise leader.
You know, as a pastor, I'm not gonna do your job.
A good pastor, though, will serve his congregation.
What does the congregation get served from the pastor?
Good sermons, you know, when you're discouraged,
calling you and talking to you,
when you want advice about something,
talking to you about that
and trying to give you good counsel.
But you know what?
I don't do everything in this church.
There are plenty of people that clean this church.
There are plenty of people
that organize things around this church.
There are people that mow our yard.
There are people that help us put stuff
in the storage unit.
There are people that help lead us,
lead soul winning times and lead soul winning tribes
and lead soul winning groups.
There's people that help us decorate.
There's people that help run baby showers.
There's people that help with the kid stuff.
There's people that clean up these mother baby rooms.
There's all kinds of stuff that people are doing
that I'm not doing.
You know what?
If I just get up here and just sing my own praises
for 20 minutes and I'm not ever serving you,
I never take your call,
I never help you,
you know what?
That would make me a bad pastor.
That would make me a bad leader.
You know, you need to have a wise king,
a wise pastor, a wise husband, a wise boss,
is one who's gonna make sure he's doing his job
of serving those that are underneath him.
Not by saying, hey, whatever you want, you get.
That's not a bad leader.
That's not a good leader.
I'm not walking around asking my kids
we're gonna eat for dinner.
They're gonna get whatever we give them
and they're gonna eat it, okay?
But they don't tell me what to do.
But you know what, in some ways I serve them.
In some ways, there's a balance there.
And we have to understand what these words mean
in their context.
Yeah, I serve my wife, but you know what?
My wife serves me.
And I serve my children, but you know what?
They serve me.
But you know what?
I'm 100% in control and 100% the dictator of my home.
And you know what?
I'm the 100% dictator in this church.
I don't know if you like that or not,
but that's just how it is.
And if you don't like it,
you can go find a bunch of deacon wives
to tell you what to do, okay?
But I don't like that church.
The Bible says in verse 18,
"By much slothfulness the building decayeth,
"and through idleness of the hands
"the house dropped it through."
We gotta work hard.
This one's funny to me.
It's not even saying being lazy, things are destroyed.
It's like being really lazy.
Think about it, through much slothfulness.
I mean, you have to be really, really, really lazy
for your whole house to fall apart.
But some people do it.
It's the ghetto.
Verse 19, "A feast is made for laughter,
"and wine maketh merry, but money answereth all things."
Boy, that's a silly verse, but it's true.
It's just like money somehow can just buy you
whatever you want many times.
Verse 20, "Cursed not the king, know not in thy thought,
"and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber,
"for a bird of the air shall carry the voice,
"and that which hath wings shall tell the matter."
There's another tip that we should be careful what we say.
Just a quick summary.
This chapter's really emphasizing in wisdom
and not going down a foolish path.
Why?
Because when you're foolish, it can destroy your reputation.
When you're foolish, it can essentially destroy your heart.
Whenever you're foolish, it can cause the ruler
to rise up against you and destroy you.
When you're foolish, everybody's gonna find out
that you're a fool because you just keep saying it
and you keep talking about it.
When you're a fool, you might get set up really high
in a high place, but you're gonna destroy
everything underneath you.
As a fool, you might end up digging a pit
and falling into your own pit.
As a fool, you're gonna always work harder
than you need to rather than using some wisdom
to actually get the job done quicker.
When you're a fool, you might get bit by the serpent
or the babbler.
And it's going to possibly hurt you very much.
And when you're a fool,
you just weary everyone else around you.
No one likes you when you're a fool.
You just basically drive everybody away from you.
When you're a fool, you could end up being a bad leader.
When you're a fool, you could be so lazy
that you destroy even your own house.
And if you're a fool, you're not gonna have money
and you might say something dumb about the king.
And boy, you don't wanna say dumb things about the king.
You don't wanna say things
that you don't want to be said out public.
And you know, of course, we all need to be careful
to hold our tongues sometimes.
We don't wanna always say everything that we think,
especially negative things, especially about other people.
We wanna be careful because it affects other people
and it can sometimes leak out
and it really hurts people's feelings.
You know, the wounds of a tail bearer
or the words of a tail bearer as wounds,
they go down in the innermost parts of the belly.
And, you know, a tail bearer is someone that just repeats the matter.
But, you know, it just hurts.
If you don't like somebody in the church,
don't tell someone else
because then they may repeat it or say something.
It's just going to ruin things, make things worse.
And, you know, again, don't get this weird idea
that every single thing needs to be said.
Like, some people are like, "Oh, I just love the truth,
so I'm going to say everything."
Okay, let's play this game.
Every single thought you have from now on, tell your spouse.
And then tell me if that's going to be a good relationship.
Actually, start with your boss first.
Every single thought that you have,
because you just love the truth so much,
and you just love everything being out in the open.
Every single thought that you've ever had,
every time, you know, if your boss says something,
you're thinking like, "That's dumb, just say it."
Well, that's dumb, right?
Isn't that the great way to live your life?
Wouldn't it be great if just every one of your thoughts
was just like on a billboard on your forehead
or something like that,
and we could all just read every single thing
that's going on in your forehead?
No. Some things need to not be said.
Some thoughts need to just be cast down.
Don't have this weird idea
that everything needs to be exposed
and everything needs to be said.
We need to keep ourselves with discretion and wisdom
and recognizing that not everything we say is great.
We should be careful.
In the multitude of words, there are wants and not sin.
And so we should be careful and be slow to speak
and be a man of few words.
And the things that we say should be coming
from a biblical precedent.
Let's close in prayer, right?
Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for the wisdom
that you're giving us in these books and these chapters.
I pray that you would just help us
to keep our hearts in our right hand,
that you would help us to exercise our heart in wisdom
and in knowledge and in truth
and in righteousness and in purity.
I pray that you would help us to keep cleaning up our hearts
and strengthening our hearts
and giving our hearts more to you.
I pray that you would just help us
to seek after more wisdom
and that you would help clean us up
from whatever dead flies,
clean us up from any evil
or any transgression or any sin that we have
and just help us to be a bright and shining light
in such a dark world.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
- We'll sing one more song before we go.
Song 16.
16.
Tastic sweetness sits enthroned.