Ecclesiastes 10:1-3

The book of Ecclesiastes chapter 10. We’ll begin a new chapter. And I want to read verses 1 to 3 for our text and study this evening. Dead flies caused the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking saver. So doth a little folly, him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor. A wise man’s heart is at his right hand, but a fool’s heart at his left. Yea also, when he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom faileth him. He saith to everyone that he is a fool. May God bless to us his sacred and holy word. this evening. Imagine waking up some morning walking into your living room and finding a huge man you’d never seen before sleeping on your couch. This actually happened to a Michigan pastor and his wife. In fact, it was the pastor’s wife who discovered the visitor in the living room. She went back to her husband in the bedroom, woke him up, and she said, don’t be told. Don’t be alarm but there’s a big guy sleeping on our couch. The police were summoned and the man was shaken out of his drunken slumber. And everyone’s surprise there was nothing sinister that happened here. He had been the previous owner of the house, or at least before he had been an owner of the house. And he still had the keys and I guess nobody changed the locks. and in his drunkenness, he just drove back to his old familiar home. He was locked down on the couch and went to sleep. Of course, the problem was it was very embarrassing. He exposed himself to be a fool by this behavior. Everyone in town would now laugh at his intoxication and his stupid action. Solomon has carefully noted in the last chapter that you must not overvalue wisdom. Wisdom is very important, but it doesn’t guarantee success because first he says your wisdom may be unrecognized, Chapter 9 versus 13 to 16. And then there is the problem of sin destroying much good that your wisdom produces, chapter 9, verses 17, and 18. Still know where does Solomon celebrate being foolish. With all its problems, wisdom must certainly be looked upon as certainly heartily preferred to follow. We must seek God’s wisdom, we must realize that God’s providence actually controls the outcome, even though we might try to do wise things. It’s God who is going to direct how things turn out. Well, here Solomon spends some time on the dangers of folly. He says, first of all, here in verse one, that the little folly destroys your good reputation. Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savor. So doth a little folly, him that is in reputation for wisdom. and honor. We could call this the lesson of the dead fly. Apothecaries were what we might call the ancient pharmacist. They would produce medicines, herbal preparations for medicines, and also they would produce perfumes. And so they had a cosmetic purpose as well. Now, Solomon here refers to a problem. common problem that they might have, and that is that flies would get into their mixtures and sort of spoil everything. These various medical preparations where you have herbs and flowers and seeds and things like that, and certainly perfumes with flowers and oils, would attract flies. A dead fly in a bottle, though only a little creature spoils the most costly ointment, or the best medication. After all, if you opened a bottle of Tylenol and found a dead fly in it, would you take any of the medication? I don’t think so. And who would want to put on even the most expensive perfume? I don’t know what that is today. It used to be Chanel of number five, but I don’t know what it is today. But if there was a dead fly, you know, floating in the perfume, you wouldn’t want to use it. Salman’s point here is just even a small, maybe. of fally, marrs a good reputation for righteousness and honor in a person’s life. Paul in the New Testament uses a similar statement only he says a little leaven, leaveneth the whole lump. And he indicates to us that fermenting dough, if you put it in with a lump of other dough, it’s going to ferment everything. and it will change the nature of everything. When I thought about this, I thought about Noah, and you think about his life and his faith, his dedication to building the ark, he was a faithful preacher according to the New Testament of righteousness, and there’s a lot of positive things to say, but at the end of his life, when he made his vineyard, he got drunk. That sort of spoils everything, doesn’t it? He had a good reputation, but that sort of marred it to some extent. Altha thought about Moses. There’s a man who refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, who by faith, stood with the people of God when he could have had an easy life and the riches of being raised as Pharaoh’s son, but he took his place with the people of God. And during the wilderness journey, it was not too long before they finally got to the promised land, he struck the rock with the rod when God said to speak to it. And because of that, he couldn’t go into the… promised land. And it was just a little folly. For a man who certainly lived by faith, certainly had much to commend him, it sort of spoiled everything. And we see that occurring in his life as well. The effectiveness of the wise person is not measured like we do a batting average. Like if you get three hits from 10 at bats, why you’re doing really good. Maybe one of the better hitters in the league. It’s sort of like your fielding average. One error in 30 is too much. Spoils your fielding percentage. So it may cost you the key game or something of that nature. Have you ever done anything? Perhaps it’s a lot. and jest, or even with good intentions, but it only caused hurt to your friends and actually blew back on you and cast a shadow over your personal integrity. Personal relationships have dissolved into bitterness over a single silly remark that’s been made. Many lives have been devastated because of a few drinks on the way home from work. and people lose all apprehension of proper decorum and do all kinds of crazy things. So you’re taught the lesson here of the dead fly. Your carelessness often produces folly. How did the fly end up in the ointment? Well, somehow rather, the apothecary did not seal up in the bottle or the box in which the medication or the perfume was contained. And the fly was able to sneak in and get inside. Doesn’t this explain really much of the folly that ends up in our own life? When we fail to engage in prayer, and diligently watch and are neglectful and inconsistent about devotions and our relationship with the Lord. It opens the door for us acting in a foolish manner. And those inconsistencies spoil the holy life that you are living. Carelessness is all it takes to allow folly to ruin everything. This is why it’s important to abstain from even the appearance of evil, because it’s very easy to falter in your Christian life. So your carelessness often produces folly. So you must focus on damage control strategies or measures. Knowing the potential danger you can get into, knowing that a little folly will spoil everything, then we should be very careful to try to control our behavior. A quick tamper or sharp tongue needs training and self-control to head off rash outburst. But as you well know, as James has told us, the tongue is a very difficult thing to tame. But it is the thing that we need to work on. Paul at one point, talked about it. beating his body to keep it in check, that he would make it his slave, that he would do what he wanted it to do. What he wanted it to do. Now, I didn’t mean this in a literal way, I don’t think, I think he meant it in a figurative sense, that he kept his body in check so that he might pursue personal holiness of life. And that involves dying to sin in living by the power of the Spirit of God. Self-discipline is essential to avoid falling. And therefore we must pursue that at all times. We must always be disciplined in the Christian life. We must watch and pray, lest we do enter into temptation. We sort of have to be like Gideon’s 300. And when all the army came to get the water, most of people just laid down and put their heads down to the water and drank. But only 300 of them put their cup their hand and put it in the water and brought it to their mouth and lapped it. Those are the three that God chose. Those 300. And so there’s a sense in which we always have to be diligent, watching. and never let our guard down. It said that Admiral Sir John Jellico was the only man who could have lost World War I in a single day. Jellico was the commander of the Grand British Fleet. And we find that that wall of steel, those battleships, are all that stood between Kaiser’s Germany and mastery of the seas. Of course, since they had an army in France fighting against the Germans, if they got cut off, it was going to be a serious problem. Defeat for the Royal Navy would simply have meant the end of the Allied war effort. Every time then Jericho took his fleet to sea, he knew that one fully, he knew that one fully mistake could put the British nation in serious danger. So he had to be extremely careful. The day of testing came on March 31, 1916, off Jutland, Denmark. The entire German fleet sallied forth to take on the British. They snuck on the British. They snuck out of port. and they were trying to ambush some of the fast battleships that had were separate in a different port than the rest of the British battleships. So they were trying to conquer in detail some of them and then they would have an even amount of ships to take on the whole British Navy then. But they did not succeed. and Britain still ruled the waves. Admiral Jellico had been prepared and the ambush failed. So I didn’t lose the war that day and he didn’t lose the war any other day. For the Germans never challenged him again. He had gained the victory. Solomon is urging believers here to prepare for victory rather than the court defeat. Be on your guard because a little folly. will ruin you. So little folly destroys your good reputation. Secondly, folly is really an issue of your heart. And here we find verse 2 coming into play. A wise man’s heart is at his right hand, but a fool’s heart at his left. Now, the heart here in scripture, this heart is at his left. is being mentioned in this text is not the organ that pumps the blood through the veins of your body. Rather denotes the innermost nature of a person, his mind, his will, his affections. It speaks of what you are, what you really think, what drives and motivates you. With apologies to left-handed people, it must be noted here that the word left, which is probably not always the case, but here, it is synonymous with evil. You may not know this, but the Latin word for left hand means sinister. And that’s what has carried over into the English. The right hand here means the correct thing, or making good choices. Now, obviously, this whole phrase, is not taken literally. So it is like a proverb. No one is literally holding his heart. In either hand, Ecclesiastes 2.14 says, The wise man’s eyes are in his head, but the fool walketh in darkness. Well, the fool’s eyes are in his head, too, but this is a figurative expression. The contrast here is between the prudence of the wise man, and who considers the path that he takes, and the thought. thoughtless and rash action of the fool. In a similar way, the right hand is always ready for action. More than the left, most people are right-handed. They do things with their right hand, whether it’s writing or lifting or eating or carrying something or wielding a weapon. It’s usually you’re right-handed most of the time. And thus the right hand illustrates the better. advantage which the wise men makes of the resources and opportunities they has. Now in scripture, the right-hand side is connected with blessing and honor, that which is pleasing to God. I had Russell read the passage in Matthew 25 about the last judgment. When we stand before Christ, then you notice that the sheep stand on the right hand, and the goats stand on the left hand of Christ. It puts it in the same category as this verse of scripture, you see. Come ye blessed of my father inherit the kingdom. That’s where the side of blessing is the right hand, where the sheep are. But where the goats are on the left, depart from me ye cursed. into the everlasting far. Psalm 16 says this, I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Later on in that verse, 16, that was 168, 1611 says, At thy right hand are pleasures forevermore. So the blessing of God is on his right hand, not on his left. So the bottom line is this. There is a divergent path of right and left, which is a figurative way of saying that the wise and the foolish start from different perspectives. The wise man is going to follow the ways of scripture, what God has laid out for the path in which he should walk. The fool is going to follow his own. wicked heart and get himself into trouble and folly. So there are two radically different ways of living, and that’s what we see here. Solomon is trying to impress upon you that foolishness is not simply to be shrugged off as something that you have to tolerate, something harmless, just one of those things that are are accepted as a normal part of life. It’s okay within limits. No, you have to be sensitive to the problem and avoid it at all cost. For a little folly ruins much good. The reason there is no fool like an old fool, because so many young fools never change their ways and become established in them, and therefore they’re old and foolish, and they do even more foolishness than they would do when they were younger. In the classic spiritual allegory, you remember Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan paints a word picture of a man who looked only down upon the ground. This poor creature was on his knees in the dirt and filth, working constantly with a rake, trying to dig up something of value on the earth. I don’t know what he was trying to find to find, but to enrich himself. In all the while, there was a bright crown of immeasurable worth within reach just above him, but he never looked up. Bunyan summarizes the tragedy. There stood one over his head with a celestial crown in his hand and proffered him that crown for his muck rake. But the man never looked up as he continued gathering to himself this the little sticks and the dust of the floor. How like man of the earth. So tied to this earth, never considers spiritual matters. And so the foolish man has his heart set on the things of the earth. He’s not heavenly minded at all. And therefore he ends up missing out. Folly is really an issue of your heart. Thirdly, tonight. Your folly always displays itself. Verse three. Yeah, also, when he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom faileth him. And he saith to everyone that he is a fool. You know, foolishness is not a well-kept secret. What happens with a fool is he betrays himself. He shows himself. to be a fool. He proudly proclaims in the way he behaves. He advertises it. I am a fool. Even when he thinks that his actions are sound and reasonable, they were in fact very deficient. The picture of the fool is a man who can’t even walk along the road without betray himself in some fashion. He’s like the emperor in the fable, the emperor’s new clothes. He’s walking around naked thinking he has these beautiful garments on when he doesn’t. He fools himself. Years ago, there was a story from St. Louis about a woman named Karen Hickey, who was a 22-year-old secretary, who wondered how it would be, feel to be in handcuffs. Well, her boss had an old pair of handcuffs in his office, and so one day she, clamped them on just to see how it would feel. Unfortunately, she forgot to ask if he had a key to those handcuffs, which he didn’t, and therefore she couldn’t get them off. Well, two hours later, the fire department with the electric cutters managed to get it cut off of her, but by that time, she was a laughingstock, and they got written up in the papers, and so she proved to, yourself to be very foolish. Solomon is saying that that sort of thing occurs in the spiritual realm all the time. People make fools of themselves openly before others by what they do or what they say. Even a person with a Ph.D., he gets to partying and ends up with a lampshade on his head walking around naked at the party, well, now he’s proven himself a fool, no matter how much is education. that he has gained. Or even worse, maybe he crashes his car on the way home because he’s drunk. The fool says in his heart there is no God, and he lives as if he will never be judged, never be held accountable for his actions. He is foolish because he will. Sometimes, when I’m up in my bedroom, It’s actually my, I use it in my office, but I look out. There’s a window that I have my desk in front of it, and I look out. That window looks out on the Parkwood Drive, the main road through the plan of houses that I live in. And often, you know, there are people going up and down the street, and every so often. There are some teenagers that are going down the street, hollering the most profane, in the most profane language. language, all kinds of terrible things, swearing and so forth, because they think they’re cool. They think that’s the end thing to do. But what are they doing? They’re going down the street, they’re proclaiming themselves to be fools. It fits right in with this text of scripture. So your folly always displays itself. So you must not overvaluate. wisdom does not in and itself guarantee success. But folly certainly isn’t the answer, as we see here. Wisdom is superior. Seek out wisdom. And remember, it’s God’s Providence that actually grants success to our wise actions. But avoid the dangers of folly. Realize a little folly destroys a good reputation that you’ve gained. It doesn’t take much. Folly, as we’ve seen, is ultimately a heart problem. And folly in the heart will inevitably display itself. Whether you get drunk and end up in the wrong house in the morning, or whether you’re carrying Hickey in the handcuffs, or whether you’re your teenagers swearing as they go down the street, doesn’t really matter. You must, therefore, engage in damage control strategy. Watch yourself carefully. Deal with you. problem areas like a sharp tanker and a quick tongue. Be careful in this life. And so that’s what Solomon would warn us about. Of course, in order to walk wisely, we have to be made wise unto salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In order to walk according to the Spirit, We must have the spirit of God within us, guiding us. So it takes regeneration to do what is wise and pleasing in the eyes of God. And so first, the first thing is you can’t just say, well, I’m going to walk wisely now, and I’m not going to be foolish. You need a change of heart. You need a renewed heart where the heart of stone is replaced with a heart of flesh. and the heart that is willing to be pliable and serve the Lord. That is how we can walk wisely in this life. Well, let’s close with a word of prayer.