Ecclesiastes 7:5-6

Ecclesiastes 7, verses 1 through 6, our focus this evening will be on verses 5 and 6. A good name is better than precious ointment in the day of death than the day of one’s birth. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to his heart. sorrow is better than laughter, for by sorrow or by sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, the heart of fools in the house of mirth. And then our text tonight, it is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the songs of fools. whereas the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity. May God bless to us his sacred and holy word this evening. There was a young boy who was playing outside and happened to notice there was a bee on one of the flowers of the clover. When he tried to catch it, it stung him in his little pudgy hand, and he went crying into the house to his mother, said, I hate bees. She did what she could to ease the pain, and then she gave him some bread with honey on it. And as he ate, his mother said to him, you really like that, don’t you? And she said, and he said, oh yes, I love it. Then she explained that the same little bee that stung him on the hand is the one that helped make the honey that he was eating, that he loved so much. Solomon has been discussing the problems associated with riches position and popularity because they can often be harmful to your soul. soul. He looks at things much differently than the world looks at them. He considers things from a biblical perspective. At the beginning of this chapter, he introduced the topic of the benefit of sorrow. We looked at that in verses 1 through 4 last week in connection with death and with hardships. While most people think that death and hardships are very bad, Solomon tells us, here that he sees something that is beneficial in these things. It makes you think about God in his ways. It produces some very serious inner thought and interinspection. Now Solomon takes up another matter which brings sorrow to your soul, and that is a rebuke. A rebuke. Rebukes are hard to accept. But like the bee, the stings are necessary in order for the honey that is eventually produced. And so we want to see the benefit of rebuke from this passage tonight. Do you view admonition as beneficial? He says here in verse 5, first part. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise. So you should consider, first of all, the value of rebuke. The Bible declares that the tongue is an unruly evil, that no person can tame it, and therefore we often use it in a way that we offend others. But here we’re called upon to accept the tongue when it gives us a wise rebuke. No one, therefore, is above the need of a rebuke or an admonition. Pharaoh, King of Egypt, received a rebuke. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, received a rebuke. David, King of Israel, received a rebuke. The question is, do you value rebukes? When someone rebukes you in any way, there is an emotion of unhappiness that comes over you. Even resentment and anger can well up within your heart. You may know that you’re in the wrong. And you’re sure, perhaps, that the person is rebuking you in love, but at the same time, you feel the pain and the shame. that it brings upon you. You may be kicking yourself, but inside you feel like lashing out against the person who brought the rebuke. How are you to respond to rebuke? Well, Solomon sees here the benefit of an admonition. It’s not an evil to dread because it can be a heart-changing experience for you. God has something in the admonition. There are things you need to change in your life. This is why a rebuke is good for you. It has a corrective quality about it when it’s a good, solid, wise rebuke. Let’s look at a couple of passages of scripture. The first is Psalm 141, verse 5. Psalm 141 verse 5. That the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness. Let him reprove me. It shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head, for yet my prayers also shall be in their calamities. He says this is an excellent oil for him to receive a rebuke. Look at Proverbs chapter 6 and verse 23. The commandment is a lamp. And the law is light and reproofs of instruction of the way of life. And then if you would, Proverbs 27, verses 5 to 7, where the writer here, Solomon, tells us, open rebuke is better than the secret love. Faith for are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. The full heart, or the full heart, the full soul loath and the honeycomb. But to the hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet. So here we find again the idea of the benefit of revuk. I read an account that was given a minister about the days of his youth. He was working at a store. And he was given some obscene cartoons. And when a Christian businessman came in, he showed him the page of cartoons, thinking that he would find them amusing. But when the mature Christians saw what it was, he threw it on the floor. He said, I’m disappointed in you. That you as a young man who profess faith in Christ can think these pictures are funny. Look at them, looking at them can only harm you, get rid of them, and tell the Lord you’re sorry. Thinking back, the pastor still vividly remembered the mixed feelings of embarrassment, shame, and resentment that welled up within him. He was tempted to make a heated reply, but he knew that the man was right. And he admitted it and confessed his sin to the Lord and never forgot the lesson that he learned. an admonition of this kind may be very difficult to accept, but it’s beneficial to the soul. Rebukes may come from the pulpit. They may come when you hear the preaching of the word of God. They may come face to face. When another believer confront you about your sin, the question is, how do you receive them? How do you look upon them? So you should consider the value of a rebuke. You should especially value the rebuke of the wise. Because that’s the kind of rebuke that he’s talking about here. During my seminary days, I lived in the dormitory and had to prepare some type of dinner for work that evening. I worked at a corrugated box factory. Since Texas is very hot during the summer months, I had to drink a lot of fluids. And I actually worked where they steamed the cardboard. together so it was hotter than it was outside inside so I need plenty of fluids. But if I bought the pop at the machines at work, I bought a glass of pop there, it was very expensive to do it that way. I wasn’t that well endowed financially. So I usually went to the grocery store. The local, what they call buddies, down there in Texas. and I would buy five or six large bottles of pop. And each night, I’d take one bottle of pop, and that would last me the night. One day, I was walking along the shelves of Buddy, and an elderly man came up and rebuked me. He saw all my bottles, looked me right in the eye, and said, you drunkard. And then he walked away. I was sort of standing there kind of dumbfounded. What is he talking about? But his rebuke didn’t mean anything because it was, from the mistaken thought, I guess, that my pop bottle was for mixing with alcohol as if I was partying or something. And they also sold alcoholic beverages in buddies. And in Texas, you could buy alcoholic beverages in the grocery store. But it’s a rebuke of the wise, you see, that carries weight. A rebuke. which carefully is spoken, takes into consideration, the mind, the manner, the temper of the individual. Sort of like when Nathan came and rebuk King David, and he did so with that parable of the U. Lamb in order to rebuke him concerning his sin with Bashiba. It was a carefully worded rebuke. He set up King David so that King David so that King David, be upset with this man and here it was him thou art the man as Nathan told him but it was a carefully laid out wise rebuke of the king the wise person avoids needless irritation in the exercise of this Christian duty as an earring of gold as an ornament of fine gold so is a wise reproval, reprover upon an obedient year. Proverbs 25, 12. Rebukes must be carefully evaluated. Some rebukes are foolish. You can simply regard them because they’re off target. They’re not, you’re not guilty of the charge. One day after the morning worship service, we had a visitor who came up to me and told me that I preached too long. He thought preacher should only preach 30 minutes. And after that, he said he simply turned down his hearing aid and turned off the preacher. Now, such rebuke is sort of laughable. I obviously pay no attention to it. I suppose if he stops listening to the Pirate Baseball broadcast 30 minutes in, I’m sure he turns it off. listening longer than that. I figured if that’s how he thinks about preaching of the Word of God, he’s in a serious spiritual condition. He needs help. But do you view admonition as beneficial? Talk about the value of rebuke and a wise rebuke is what’s important. The other ones you can just ignore because they don’t really apply wisely to you. Secondly, do you realize that true admonition is a demonstration of love? For a wise person to rebuke someone who is in some type of error, keep him from stumbling off the cliff, so to speak, is an act of love. David once complained that no man careth for my soul. The Bible calls upon you to watch. for the souls of the members of the body of Christ. We all have a duty to do this. Love means that you do the rebuke not to crush this person, not to put them down unnecessarily here, but to aid this person in their Christian walk. Paul does this many times in the epistles he writes. You can’t read First Corinthians. and see how he has to rebuke the Christians there for divisions and incest and court cases and confusion in the church services and abuse of the Lord’s Supper and a whole host of other things. Not showing love to their brethren because they would eat food, sacrifice, the idols, and some of their brethren didn’t realize. that they weren’t involved in the worship. They were just eating the meat. But that was not something they should be doing, is what Paul told them. The Bible says, Speak the truth in love. Not that you speak the truth alone, but how you speak the truth is important that we speak in love. There was a young man, a student that was preparing for the ministry. And he had to do that. deliver a sermon to his Presbytery, which included the elders of his denomination. In Presbyterian system of church government, the Presbytery is sort of the regional assembly of churches, and these would be the elders from that regional assembly of churches. The pastors and elders are delegated to this body from their local congregations in order to be evaluated for the ministry. And the Presbytery oversees the preparation of men for the ministry. Really, this duty belongs to the local church, which independent, people are independent where you’re congregational or you’re Baptist, it’s the local church’s duty to do this. So we would disagree with them on this church government. But this young, man delivered his sermon, the pastors and elders of the regional denomination, listened to what he had to say, and then they would comment on it, and then they would vote to either sustain him or not to sustain him as a prospective minister. They were going to make a decision on him. Now, generally, the comments upon this young man were favorable. One pastor, how he was going to make a decision on him. however, one commenting on the young student, remarked that for all that was good and scriptural in his sermon, did he in fact missed the central point of the verse of scripture that he’d used to preach? And then he explained the key concept in a few words and commended it as a point for future consideration for the young man. Many years later, these two men met at a church meeting. The former student was now a pastor also. And the former student said this, do you remember that time when you criticize my sermon before the presbytery? I was so angry at the time. It just burned me up to be told that I had missed the point. He said, well, years later, in my pastorate, I was going to be going to preach on that passage of scripture. And so I dug out my old sermon that I had given to the Presbyterian went over it. And I realized that everything you had said was right and that I was wrong. And he said, I appreciated the fact then, what I didn’t appreciate earlier. And then he told the other pastor, he said, never hesitate to stand up and say what’s on your mind if you think something’s wrong. He said, it did me a world of good in the long run to see what you had to say. And all that came back to my mind as I went over my old sermon and realized how wrong I had been. It behooves all of us to learn to give a rebuke in a loving manner. Here’s the secret. You know what the secret of all this is? It’s really the Christian principle that we were to live by. but love our neighbor as ourselves. Now, how would you like to receive that rebuke? And if you were going to receive it, how would you like that person to give it to you? That’s the way you should give it to them. And, of course, to receive such a rebuke requires a humble spirit on our part. So do you realize admonition is a demonstration of love? Thirdly, denied. Do you acknowledge that admonition is better for you than what makes you happen? Notice the second part of verse 5 and then all of verse 6. Then for a man to hear the song of fools, for as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity. Laughter here speaks of lightheartedness, of having a good time, and being at ease, enjoying yourself. listening to the songs of fools here might be appealing, but it doesn’t address any of the needs of your soul. A lot of country Western music seems to revolve around, you know, drowning your sorrows with drink and listening to sad music about how you’ve been done wrong and so forth. Let me update this for today. If I would put this maybe in today’s setting. Solomon sees the idea here of you being at Happy Hour at the local bar when the drinks are flowing and the most worn out jokes caused laughter. The jute block is paying some country western tearjerker or some empty rock and roll classic. And how does your partying help your soul? How does it improve your life? Or mend your perverse ways. It doesn’t do anything at all. Solomon says that the laughter of a fool is like the crackling of thorns in a fire. Now, people in Palestine would often use thorns as really fire starters. They’d have a harder wood underneath it. but they’d get the thorns and that they would quickly burn and they could get it started so that it would start burning and then it would get to the harder wood underneath it. But you couldn’t use just the thorns here for cooking a meal, the thorn bushes, because they’d burn up too quickly. They’d just be consumed very fast. You need something that’s going to go to a high temperature. over a long period of time, some kind of hardwood to do that. Similarly, he’s saying that the merriment of the world gives you only temporary relief. For a short time, it may take your mind off your troubles, but it soon fades away, and your troubles come back. It doesn’t solve any problems. It doesn’t change you for the better. The rebuke of a godly manner or a way, woman then is far more valuable because it has a long-term effect. It’s better to learn from criticism than to engage in empty partying. Jesus taught his followers, woe unto you that laugh now, for ye shall weep and mourn. You can’t drown your sorrows. You can’t drown your sorrows. you can’t run away from your problems. This is why the rebuke of a loving friend is actually the most beneficial thing that you could receive, even though it may be painful. As Hebrews 1211 tells us, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of the, righteousness under them that are exercised thereby. The little boy who loved his honey didn’t like bees. Bees sometimes do sting you but the honey they produce is very sweet. In the spiritual realm rebukes are sort of like the bee stings. They heard a bit but what comes out of it can be sweet and benefit to your soul. And so admonition which brings sorrow has a beneficial side, especially if it’s a wise and loving rebuke that you have received. Isn’t such a rebuke better than the songs of and laughter that the world chases after in this life? It’s good for your soul. That’s what counts. And that’s what Solomon is telling us. in tonight’s study. May God bless to us, His sacred in his word this evening. Bless it.