Dead Flies and Little Birds (Part 1 of 2)

An unguarded moment of foolishness can completely destroy your reputation, your marriage, your family, your job, so much more.

The damage isn't easily repaired. So how can we more consistently make the right choices? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg takes a closer look at the subjects of wisdom and folly.

We're going to read from our Bibles in Ecclesiastes and the tenth chapter, and we're going to read this chapter and then pray and then study it together. You may like just to keep it open before you as we pray. As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, So a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. The heart of the wise inclines to the right, But the heart of the fool to the left. Even as he walks along the road, the fool lacks sense, And shows everyone how stupid he is. If a ruler's anger rises against you, Do not leave your post.

Camness can lay great errors to rest. There is an evil I have seen under the sun, The sort of error that arises from a ruler. Fools are put in many high positions, While the rich occupy the low ones.

I have seen slaves on horseback, While princes go on foot like slaves. Whoever digs a pit may fall into it, Whoever breaks through a wall may be bitten By a snake, whoever quarries stones may be injured by them, Whoever splits logs may be endangered by them. If the axe is dull and its edge unsharpened, More strength is needed, but skill will bring success. If a snake bites before it is charmed, There is no profit for the charmer. Words from a wise man's mouth are gracious, But a fool is consumed by his own lips. In the beginning his words are folly, At the end they are wicked madness, And the fool multiplies words.

No one knows what is coming, Who can tell him what will happen after him. A fool's work wearies him, He does not know the way to town. Woe to you, O land, whose king was a servant, And whose princes feast in the morning. Blessed are you, O land, whose king is of noble birth, And whose princes eat at a proper time, For strength and not for drunkenness. If a man is lazy, the rafters sag, If his hands are idle, the house leaks.

A feast is made for laughter, And wine makes life merry, But money is the answer for everything. Do not revile the king even in your thoughts, Or curse the rich in your bedroom, Because a bird of the air may carry your words, And a bird on the wing may report what you say. Amen. Father, as we study the Bible together, it is our earnest longing that you will take my words and speak through them. Take our minds and help us to think through them, and take our hearts and transform them by the power of your truth.

For Jesus' sake we ask it. Amen. Well, the writer of these chapters is about to turn into the home straight and to answer some of the questions that he has left hanging. That will become apparent as we get to the eleventh and the twelfth chapter. But before doing so, he takes this tenth chapter and provides us with a series of proverbial statements much akin to what we find in the book of Proverbs itself. And throughout this chapter, he is urging his readers to resist folly and to embrace wisdom.

We could summarize it, actually, in just one hortatory statement. Be sensible! Don't go the way of the fool.

Instead, go the way of the wise man. Some of us have spoken before about visiting the town of Oban in the west of Scotland, a small seaside town where people go often to take the ferry across to the island of Mull. And if you've been there, you probably bought an umbrella if you didn't carry one. And along with the rain, one of your memories may have been the colosseum-like structure which towers over the small town and looks down over the bay. And in your initial arrival in the place, you may have said to your traveling companions, We must go up there and see what that is.

It looks to be quite a magnificent thing. But when you went up there, you discovered that it really was nothing at all. It was just a big circular piece of real estate. There were no windows in it. There was no flooring in it, no ceiling on it.

Nothing in it at all. And you said to yourself, This is a rather interesting construction. I wonder who put it here. And then you would have read a little of the blurb, and you would have discovered that it was put there by a gentleman by the name of Mr. McCaig. And it was known as McCaig's Folly, because it was empty. It was a shell. It served no real function.

It was practically useless. And in that respect, it was similar to structures that are found in other places in Europe, not least of all in France, and you may have seen them there. They are described as follies, standing there as a testimony to the foolish endeavors of Mr. McCaig. Now, when you come to chapter 10, he provides us, if you like, not with a Colosseum-like structure but with the anatomy of foolishness. He provides us, if you like, with the identical picture of Folly. Here we see Folly walking the streets, scaling the heights, propounding its notions. And what I want to do is simply track a line through it with you, identifying, first of all, in verses 1–4, Folly as we find it on the street. Folly as we find it on the street, or Folly, if you like, down at ground level.

The opening statement here is an illustration that would have been immediately understood by the writers' readers. As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little Folly outweighs wisdom and honor. And in the process of making perfume, often of a more ointment construction than some of the perfume that would be used today, more like a body oil than the squirts from those tiny little bottles, it would only take one small fly.

Although it is a tiny creature, it could spoil the whole fragrance very easily. And he said, in the same way, it doesn't take much folly to outweigh wisdom and honor. You could have built a reputation in your life for many years. Over a period of twenty or thirty years, you could be known for being a wise and honorable citizen, and then, in a moment of foolishness, you can mar that reputation. A tiny amount of folly may destroy a family, ruin a reputation, bring heartache into a marriage.

What he is saying in the opening verse of chapter 10 is simply an illustration of the way in which he has concluded chapter 9. Wisdom is better than weapons of war. One sinner destroys much good. It takes far less to ruin something than it does to create it. In common parlance, it is easier to cause a stink than it is to create sweetness. In a foolish impulse, in a sudden lapse of judgment, something beautiful may be irreparably spoiled.

Can I say just a word to our young people here this morning? In a foolish impulse or in a sudden lapse of judgment, something beautiful—namely, your virginity—may be irreparably spoiled. You don t have to remain a virgin for all of your life, just for the next five minutes.

And then for the five minutes after that. And particularly for the five minutes when all hell lets loose against you with a big smiling face and the leering grin of someone who says, Everybody does this. One lapse in judgment, one foolish encounter, and you remove from yourself that which is unique and precious to you. Therefore, you have to set moral sentries.

The same is true regarding any fall into sin. Watch out for the unguarded moment, the damage caused by the hasty word, by the irritable temper, by the rudeness of manner, by the occasional slip, by the supposedly harmless eccentricity. Oh, you know, he does that with everybody. Don t worry.

You know, he puts his arm around everyone. You don t have to worry about him. Don t be too quick to assume that that s the case. Verse 2 points out that when we err in this way, it is ultimately an issue of the heart. For those of you who are left-handed, don t allow this verse to unsettle you.

Let me retranslate it for you in a way that I think does justice to the emphasis that it brings. The wise man s heart leads him aright. The fool s heart leads him astray.

That s the point that he s making. The folly here is not primarily that of the mental deficiency but of moral perversity. The fool, he says, inclines to the less valuable. The fool inclines to what is wrong. To the extent, as he then points out in verse 3, that this kind of foolishness isn t easily disguised. And he provides us with a comic picture, the kind of fool that you find portrayed constantly in Shakespeare s plays. Even as he walks along the road, the fool lacks sense, and he shows everybody how stupid he is. There s something about the way a fool walks, the way a fool expresses himself. It is absolute foolishness to see these drunken people come down the streets. They think it s so terrific, but they look foolish. In Scotland, in traffic jams, after imbibing vast amounts of alcohol at football matches, namely soccer matches, it s not uncommon for policemen to be chasing gentlemen who have decided that in order to beat the crush that is on the pavement, they will simply walk on the roofs and the hoods of cars.

And so they walk on the cars, down, and trying to get out of the parking lot, and you can see them coming. They don t have to say anything. They re just really foolish. They don t have to open their mouths.

I can t say anything unkind again this morning. Good idea to say anything about those dreadful masks that the people wear with the dogs heads on them and walk through the streets of Cleveland. What in the world is that about?

It s hard to convince other people across the country that this is a rarefied atmosphere in which we live, and it s a fairly, you know, high-level town. When the people are going around eating dog biscuits and barking and everything, they don t have to do much, and the people say, What a foolish bunch of people they are! Who are those people who do that? Well, I don t know who s behind that. Some of you may be behind those masks, for all I know.

Having got to know some of you wouldn t surprise me a little bit. Now, when you cross-reference this with what it says in the book of Proverbs, you will discover that when the fool is approaching, you will be able to sense it because other people are leaving. As the fool approaches, people leave. That s what he says in Proverbs 17.

Why is everybody backing off? Because they can see him coming. The fool seldom listens to what he s being told.

He says, Aha, aha, and looks all around, but he doesn t actually pay attention. And yet at the same time, when he speaks voluminously, he anticipates that the individual will listen to everything he has to say. And the fool is not the person you should use to deliver your mail.

You would be better to chop your feet off than to send an important message with a fool. So says Solomon, Proverbs 26.6. In verse 4, the writer warns of the way foolishness can make us rush out of an opportunity for employment because we take the huff.

I read verse 4 again and again until I figured out what it really meant, and I think this is what it means. If a ruler s anger rises against you, do not leave your post. Calmness can lay great errors to rest. And what he s describing here is the foolish pride which quickly takes the huff and storms out. Says Kidner, It may feel magnificent to resign your post, ostensibly on principle, but actually in a fit of pride it is in fact less impressive and more immature than it feels.

And some of us, tragically, can see our faces in this verse. We decided that because of this or that or the next thing, our pride being wounded, we weren t going to put up with any more of this at all. Oh, no, no! We re not going to allow this person, this boss, sitting up in room 43 to get angry with us just at the drop of a hat.

No, no. We re out. We re gone. And so we began to pack our box, and away we went down the stairs, or we slammed the boardroom door, and out we went. It felt so good for a moment. We got to the bottom of the stairs. We realized that we didn t have that fountain pen that our wife gave us for our Christmas, and we had the horrible dilemma of having to go back up again. And everyone sitting around the room, we had just stormed out in the huff. Now we have to go and say, I left my pen. And the people just looked, they didn t say anything.

We went in, we took our pen, and we walked out, and as the door closed, we could hear it just went fool, fool, fool, fool, fool, fool, fool, fool. Now, the interesting thing is, of course, that the anger of the ruler is often driven by the same kind of pride that the foolish person exercises in taking the huff. So, better to have only one person in the huff than two people in the huff.

Better just leave your boss in the huff and have a calm answer for him than get two people in the huff. This is intense practical wisdom. For those of you who had something planned for tomorrow morning, something special along these lines, perhaps Ecclesiastes 10 verse 4 will be an antidote to your foolishness. Through patience a ruler can be persuaded. Proverbs 25 15, through patience a ruler can be persuaded. The fact is that patience and folly seldom hold hands walking down the street.

Patience and folly usually don t hold hands as they walk down the street. Well, from folly on the street to folly in high places, that s what he s referring to in verse 5 and following, and also verses 16 and 17. Folly, apparently, knows no class distinctions. I ve seen the sort of ruler, the sort of error, that arises from a certain kind of ruler where fools are put in high positions.

Apparently, there have been fools in government consistently throughout history. And when you have the leadership that is described in verse 5, then the upheavals of 6 and 7 shouldn t be a surprise to anyone. Now, each of us reads these verses in light of our understanding of contemporary history as well. And what we need to recognize is that what he is saying here is that only when what is natural and sensible and orderly is in place will wisdom thrive. And when what is unnatural and not sensible and disorderly is in place, then it gives the opportunity for folly to expand. I recognize that the notion of princes raises the ire of the average American, and therefore it would be difficult for me to convince you of the importance of the prince here.

Of course, I don t have to do so, because the main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things. And what he is saying is this that when you have chaos in the realm of leadership, when you have folly making decisions, then it does not live in high places alone, but it bleeds down into the very structure of society. Therefore, it is imperative that we see as we exercise our democratic privileges to it that we do not put foolish leadership in place. George III, one of the kings of Great Britain, was known for talking to the trees in Windsor Park. It just gives you cause for concern when you find your king, whom you re supposed to bow down before, out talking to a gigantic oak tree before he has his morning coffee.

Caligula, the Roman emperor, was so out of it that he proposed that his horse be elected a consul, and he kitted it out with a beautiful marble stall and purple blankets and suggested that members of the Roman population come and bow down before his horse. Verse 7 provides an apt summary of revolution. It made me think immediately of the overthrow of the Tsar of Russia. I have no particular interest in upholding Tsarist Russia, but I have observed the mayhem and the chaos that was part of the Russian Revolution. And every revolution since, where wrong people are placed in or assume for themselves leadership.

Now, we need to move on from here, but we should note in passing that when individuals are incapable of making right choices in their private lives, when they re guilty of dreadful errors in judgment, then they ought not to be entrusted with the wider responsibilities of government and with the great influence that their position would give them. Surely that's the import of verses 16 and 17, the contrast between them. First of all, he pronounces a woe, and then he pronounces a blessing. Woe to you, O land, whose king was a servant and whose princes feast in the morning! First, a ruler without wisdom, surrounded by decadence. Blessed are you, O land, when your president is of noble birth, when princes eat at the proper time, and they do so for strength, and not so that they might get smashed and run around like crazy people. There's tremendous sense in this, isn't there? It seems to make perfect sense.

Makes perfect sense in every generation. Folly on the street, folly in high places. Thirdly, folly at work. Verses 8–11 and 15. Folly at work. Whoever digs a pit may fall into it, whoever breaks through a wall may be bitten by a snake. He goes through these various things.

And if chapter 10 may be summarized under the heading Be Sensible, then this little section may fall under the heading Be Realistic. And the pit which traps its maker, you will find, if you read, for example, in the Psalms, that it is a picture of poetic justice. In Psalm 7 verse 15, Psalm 9 verse 15, Psalm 35 verse 7, you will find that this whole picture of digging a pit and then falling into it yourself is a picture of poetic justice. And the grabbing impact of an unnoticed serpent is the image in the Old Testament of a lurking retribution.

Verse 10 provides us with a blinding glimpse of the obvious. If the axe is dull and its edge is unsharpened, you're going to have to beat like crazy on the wood, and all you're going to do is smash it and crash it and bump it. But if you would take the time to sharpen the axe before you begin, then, of course, your endeavor will be met with far greater success. But the fool says, I don't want to take time to sharpen the axe.

I don't want to take time to make preparations. Let me just give me the thing and let me get at it. And so he flails away, makes a dreadful mess. And any sensible person, particularly his wife, can see that if only he would have taken a couple of minutes to have the thing sharpened, then all of the wood would have been chopped, and we would be ready to leave now. But instead, we've got wood all over the place, perspiration running down his back.

A little more skill and a little more strength, and things would be so different. Folly blusters ahead when it should wait. Folly delays unduly when it is time to proceed. The work of a fool, verse 15, is just an absolute weariness to him. He doesn't know the way to town. He makes things needlessly difficult for himself.

He can get lost, as we say, in an elevator. Folly knows no class distinction. We find foolish behavior and the chaos that it creates at street level as well as in high places. We're listening to Truth for Life. That's Alistair Begg encouraging us to be sensible and realistic. It is increasingly challenging to be sensible and realistic in a world that has largely discarded God's instructions for marriage or for gender or for human sexuality. In fact, as we seek to uphold our views, we often face harsh backlash.

So what's the best way to respond? Well, we want to recommend a book that will help explain. The book is titled Being the Bad Guys, How to Live for Jesus in a World That Says You Shouldn't. This is a brand new book that takes a fresh look at the current messaging that's bombarding us through our phones, our TV, even in our schools. The author of the book helps us figure out what's happening, how did we get here, and what do we do now? This is an extremely relevant book. If you find yourself preoccupied or overly worried about the new norms for lifestyles in our world, you'll be comforted and helped by reading Being the Bad Guys.

You can request your copy of the book Being the Bad Guys when you give a donation online at truthforlife.org slash donate or call us at 888-588-7884. And by the way, if you're traveling this summer, you don't have to miss a single program if you download the Truth for Life mobile app to your phone or your tablet. The app provides you with direct access to Alistair's daily messages and a whole lot more. Search for Truth for Life in your app store and download the app today for free.

I'm Bob Lapine. We hope you have a great weekend and are able to worship with your local church this weekend. Join us Monday for the conclusion of today's message. We'll learn why Christians of all people ought to be able to thoroughly enjoy life. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.