Introduction

● The Roller coaster of Ecclesiates: Good/vanity

● Two extreme responses: Nihilism vs. Hedonism

● Main point: Life can be unexpected, but control what you can

Every year my family, we go up to Sandpoint and go camping for a year at a place called Garfield Bay. If anybody's ever been there, it's a really nice area, but we have one person, one purpose that we go there, one purpose alone. And if you ask my kids. They are here first service, they'll tell you it's to go to Silverwood. Has anyone ever been to Silverwood? Yeah, so it's actually the biggest. Theme park in the Pacific Northwest. Water slides, roller coasters, that kind of thing is really fun. And every year that I go there, I'm reminded that I'm no longer 18 years old. There's a roller coaster and this one really gets me. It's called Timber Terror, and it's appropriately named. I literally ride the roller coaster with my hands like this behind my neck because it thrashes you from side to side. And literally, you walk out. And every time I go there, I swear that it was designed by a chiropractor with the sole purpose of getting more clients.

You get out and you're a wet noodle, you know, and you're like, literally, you're so sore and you walk out the exit and there's a guy handing out pieces of paper that says, need a chiropractor, Call us.

Maybe I made that up, but there's not, there's maybe not a guy there, but it seriously thrashes you back and forth.

And as we've been going through the book of Ecclesiastes, I've been kind of

thinking sometimes it feels like Ecclesiastes is kind of like timber terror. It thrashes you back and forth. You know, Solomon is kind of going back and forth between saying wisdom is good. It's a great thing. Like we saw last

week, wisdom is better than might.

Ecclesiastes 9:16 Wisdom is better than weapons of war or wisdom. A man's wisdom makes his face shine. The good thing. And yet you read somewhere else in Ecclesiastes 1:17, “I applied my heart to know wisdom and to no madness and folly, and I perceived that it was but a striving after the wind.”

So he seems to be saying, wait, wisdom is just vanity, it's striving after the wind. Or he says the same thing about pleasure. On the one hand, pleasure is

vanity of vanities.

Ecclesiastes 2:1. “Come, I will test you with pleasure. Enjoy yourself.” But this was also vanity, he says. But then later on in the chapter Ecclesiastes 2:24 “There's nothing better than for a person that he should eat, drink and find enjoyment in his toil.

So there's this wrestling match going on in the book of Ecclesiastes where Solomon is saying, on the one hand, wisdom is good, on the other hand, it's vanity. On the one hand, pleasure is good, on the other hand, it's vanity. And what I think Solomon wrestles with in the book is that sometimes life doesn't go as planned. And so sometimes you realize as you do all these things and then it's cut short, your enjoyment is cut short. So what's the point? Why even try to begin with? And throughout history, I think people have recognized that, right? People have recognized that life doesn't always go as planned. And so there's kind of two extreme responses that people have taken to this idea. On the one hand, people take the Nihilistic, the Hedonistic, or the stoic approach.

I'm not even going to try and enjoy anything. I'm just going to be stone faced because I don't want to have my joy cut short. I might as well not enjoy anything to begin with.

Or you got the other side of the spectrum. You got the Hedonistic approach.

You know how it goes. Eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow you die. Let's just pull the plug on all morals, let's jettison all caution, and let's just live a life of licentiousness and live it to the fullest. Because tomorrow you're dead.

But I think what Solomon teaches us in the chapter here is that the answer really is somewhere in between. Neither one of those two approaches is the wise way to approach life. Things don't always go as planned. But sometimes

they do. So you don't know, you don't want to take either one of those two extremes.

I. Life Can be Unexpected (10:5-11)

You Might Make a Mistake (10:5-6)

● Ruler mistake: Life gets turned upside down

● We all make mistakes

But you should control what you can control, right? Life can be unexpected. So for those things, how do you plan? On the other hand, you can control certain things. And Solomon gives us some specific examples. So we're going to look at Ecclesiastes 10. And I'm not going to read the whole thing through because as I was reading it, I realized it kind of reads like a chapter in Proverbs.

You know, read a chapter in Proverbs. One verse might be on money.

The next verse is on wisdom. The next verse is on being lazy. The next verse is on enjoyment. So there's not a clear linear argument that the author is making. So we're going to look at it in sections. I'll look at the middle section 1st, and then we'll look at some of the verses above it and then below it.

Ecclesiastes 10:5-11. The main point that Solomon is trying to make here is that life can be unexpected.

Verse 5. “There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, as it were, an error proceeding from the ruler.

6. Folly is set in many high places, and the rich sit in a low place.

7. I've seen slaves on horses and Princess walking on the ground like slaves.

8. He who digs a pit will fall into it, and a serpent will bite him who breaks through a wall.

9. He who quarries stones is hurt by them, and he who splits logs is endangered by them.

10. If the iron is blunt and one does not sharpen the edge, he must use more strength, but wisdom

helps 1 to succeed.

11. If the serpent bites before it is charmed, there is no advantage to the charmer.”

What Solomon is, the point that he's trying to make here is that, first of all, life is unexpected because you might make a mistake. Look at those verses again. There's an evil that I have seen under the sun, as it were, an error proceeding

from the ruler. By the way, error is kind of a hard word to say error. A lot of Rs in there. The word that's used there though, is a word that is used for really a mistake that comes about because of either negligence, forgetfulness, or an accident.

So in Leviticus 5:14, for example, that same word is used for an unintentional sin. There were sins in the Old Testament that you committed that were unintentional. You didn't know about them. You didn't know you did it. And it says if somebody commits this sin, he brings a ram and the priest shall make atonement for the mistake. That's the word there that he made unintentionally. That's the word again. And he shall be forgiven. Sometimes mistakes can be made right. Sometimes a ruler might make a mistake that will drastically alter the course of his life. A ruler makes a mistake and the next thing you know he's walking on the ground and the slave is on the horse. It's a mistake now. Mistakes don't always come about through incompetence. Sometimes mistakes arise out of a lack of information.

So I remember a couple years ago, I was driving down Chinden and I see a police car ahead of me and I looked down. I got the needle right at 45° at 45 miles an hour. You know where I'm going with this. I blow past the cop and I look down. I'm doing well. I look in my rear view mirror and I see lights. And just then I look up and there's another sign that says 35 miles an hour. I had the wrong information. I thought I was going the speed limit. Sometimes you might make a mistake because of missing information.

There was a story from 2013, if I'm not mistaken about a zookeeper in Florida. They called her the tiger whisperer and she was one of the most proficient zookeepers dealing with tigers. So she definitely was not incompetent. She just was missing information. She went into the cage thinking that the tiger was not there. Tiger comes around the corner, he sees her and he ends up killing her. It wasn't because of her incompetence. She was just missing information, valuable information.

Or you might misinterpret information. In December of 2023, two months after the war with Hamas started, there's a tragic story of how 3 Israeli hostages were killed by the Israel Defense Forces. They were actually just mis-

interpreting the information. They had seen like a sheet that the hostages had taken some food and they had written help us and the Israelis thought that it was a ruse that Hamas was trying to get them to pull them into. Hamas ended up shooting and killing the hostages tragically, so they misinterpreted information.

And the question we have is, well, how do we prepare for a mistake? You can't always prepare for a mistake. I mean, you can try and bring the level of incompetence down to 0, as close as possible, but there's going to be mistakes that you're going to make in your life between now and the end of your life. You're going to make another mistake and you can't always prepare for that.

You Might Be Involved in an Accident (10:8-11)

● Retribution or accident? Cf. v. 9

● Verse 14: “No man knows what is to be, a;nd what will be after him, who can tell him?”

Or you might be involved in an accident. Look at verse 8. “He who digs a

pit will fall into it, and a serpent will bite him who breaks through a wall.”

Now when I read that verse and these verses here, it actually took me quite a while to figure out what Solomon is actually saying here because you can interpret these verses in two different ways. Some people think that the verses are talking about. What's the word retribution? So if you're digging a pit in order to trap somebody, then ultimately that guy gets what he deserves, he's going to fall into it. Or if you break down a wall in order to conquer the city,

you're going to get what you deserve and a snake will bite you. Another way to read it though is that Solomon is talking about a simple accident and for me the key was actually verse 9.

If you look at verse 9, he says, “He who quarries stones is hurt by them

and he who splits logs is endangered by them.”

And so I think that verse is the key for the rest of the verses here. A quarry of

somebody who quarries stones, that's just an occupation in the Old Testament. It's not something that is done in a crafty way or in order to be sly or somebody who splits logs. You need wood in order to keep warm. And sometimes when you're splitting that log, you might get hurt by it.

My brother was reminding me of a time when we were out cutting wood and

he had the chainsaw, and a piece of the wood flew up and I was literally right in front of him and it hit me right on the bill of my hat. And he's like, luckily you had a hat on. I was like, yeah, how do you prepare for that? If I didn't have a hat, I might not be here right now. Right. You can't always prepare for an accident. I'm reminded of a time years ago, there was a family in our church in Israel that they were driving down the road. I think they're on vacation. They're driving down the road. All of a sudden the car in front of them swerves and they hit him head on. Husband is killed, son is killed. One of the daughters is killed. The wife and the other daughter were the only two that

survived. They weren't doing anything wrong. There was no incompetence there, it's just an accident that arises and I know some of you guys in this room have experienced the unexpected. Right? You can get sick, you can have a tragedy that happens. You can't prepare for that. And so what do you do?

What do you do in that situation? Solomon doesn't tell us specifically in these verses, but he tells us in the rest of the book. He says there is one person and one person alone who actually knows the future. He can actually look around the corner. He can actually plan for something to happen and be 100% certain that that will happen. And that's God, he says in Ecclesiastes 3:14. “Whatever God does endures forever. Nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it.” Only God's actions are totally secure and not subject to any influence by something else, right?

Only God's actions are totally secure. And so when you think about that, what's the response then to the unexpected? What should we do? What's the proper biblical response? And I think the proper biblical response is you let God write your story. I read a book years ago written by a guy called Steve Saint. So he was Nate Saint's son. Remember, he was one of five missionaries that was killed in the 50’s Jim Elliott, Nate Saint. Three other guys, they go to the

Auca Indians in Ecuador. They're killed tragically. And so his father was killed. And he writes a book about how years later. 30 years later, so they go back to this tribe, they work with them. But what really struck me about the book is the last chapter of the book. He talks about how his daughter had gone on a mission trip and she came back. She's really excited about sharing the gospel with people, and she literally just comes off of the bus. She sits down and she starts experiencing some pain in her head. They sit her down and it gets worse. Eventually they call an ambulance, and they send her to the hospital. Within a couple hours she's in a coma and that night she dies. Tragic.

And then a couple years later, he gets in an accident and he gets paralyzed.

I mean, he lost his father at a young age, his daughter was killed, he gets paralyzed. And what really stuck with me all these years since I've read the book is this one phrase he says, let God write your story. That's so insightful. There are some things that you cannot plan for.

Proper Biblical Response: Let God write your story

● Does God have a sledgehammer?

● What is the most common metaphor for God in the NT?

● …but is the unexpected guaranteed:

And so let God be God. And when you think about that. Is that a terrifying thought? On the one hand, you know it's not in my control, but I think it depends on your view of who God is. Do you think God has a sledgehammer?

Put that in the notes. I was going to bring one in, but I forgot it. Do you

think God owns a sledgehammer? I don't think that he does. You know, He's not waiting in heaven to just smack you on the head at the first opportunity.

The most common metaphor for God in the New Testament is God as our Father, right? He is a loving father. I like what Jesus says in Matthew 7:9, He says, “which one of you if his son asks him for bread? Will you give him a stone or he asked for a fish? Will he give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father, who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Now, it doesn't mean we always understand how our Father acts.”

My kids don't always understand why I don't let them check the warriors. You know the scores for the warriors in the morning. They don't always. They're not always happy with the way that I respond to them, but it doesn't make me any less of a loving father.

And that's how it is with God. Sometimes he acts in a way we don't understand, but He's no less of a loving father to us when we don't understand him. So one side of the wisdom coin is recognizing that life can be unexpected. You might make a mistake, you might get in an accident. But the other side of the wisdom coin is you do control what you can control in your life. There are some things you can do. Solomon gives us a couple specific examples.

II. Control What You Can (10:1-4, 12:20)

Guiding Principle: A Little Folly Can So Great Damage (10:1-3)

● Fly in a perfume bottle; Mouse in a well

● Foolisheness is easily spotted

First, he gives us a guiding principle. OK, look at verse 1 of chapter 10.

He says dead flies make the perfumers ointment give off a stench. So a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.

So last weekend or last week at our Home group, we were sitting around and Del Wyrek was there. And I said, Del, gave us a story of what life was like 85 years ago. He told the story. I said, yeah, why not? So he starts telling about what it was like living in rural Kansas on a farm. And he says, you know, we didn't have electricity, really, we had like these old batteries and then we didn't have indoor plumbing. We did have running water, he said. But sometimes, he said, you turn on the water and you'd get, you'd drink the water and there'd be a funny taste to the water. So we would go outside, we'd walk up the hill, we'd pull up the wellhead, and we would look inside and you know what we would see inside. A mouse.

Now that's a perfect example. One mouse can sour the entire wellhead, right? I've never seen a fly in a perfume ointment, but a mouse in a well house I can understand. The point is that a little folly can cause great damage, and that's what Solomon is trying to say here. Foolishness is actually more potent than wisdom. It takes a lifetime of living wisely to live a successful life. But just a little foolishness can wreck your entire life.

On September 22, 1975, Sarah Jane Moore tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford. Some of you guys may remember that. She takes a gun, she's 40 feet away. She shoots and misses and they arrest her immediately and they bring her in. They convicted her within two weeks or something like that. She was put in prison, convicted of 32 years of prison.

That moment of stupidity resulted in her being in jail for 32 years of her life. It doesn't matter how well she lived her life for 45 years leading up to that. That one moment drastically altered the course of her life.

A little folly can cause great damage, and Solomon says that sometimes it's actually probably oftentimes it's evident when somebody is acting foolish.

Look at verses 2 and 3.

(10:12 “A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left. Even when the fool walks on the road, he lacks sense, and he says to everyone that he is a fool.” You know, sometimes you can live your life in such a foolish way that all people can do is just look at you and they shake your head. You're just acting like a fool. So in light of the fact that one little mouse can sour the whole, well, a little bit of foolishness can wreck your whole life.

Solomon says live life in a way that is wise. Do control the things that you can control. And he gives us a couple of examples here. Look at verse 4.

Respond with Grace(10:4)

● More literal translation: “If the anger of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your place, for calmness will lay great offenses to rest.”

● I Peter 4:8 “ love covers all sins.”

And there's a little bit more literal translation that I thought was helpful. It goes like this. If the spirit of a ruler rises against you, don't leave your place, for healing will lay great sins to rest. That's literally what the original says. In other words, the point is, don't repay one offense with another offense. If the King's fury rises against you and then you storm out of the room, you're

just upping the ante. You're not going to win. The way to win is to defuse the situation. Respond with grace. That's what Solomon's trying to say here.

Or I like how Peter says it. First Peter 4:8, “Love covers a multitude of sins.”

Or Proverbs 15:1, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” And that's actually really hard to do, isn't it? We're so tempted and we're so prone to respond in the way that we've been treated.

I think I think back in the book of Samuel, remember there's a story about Nabal, Abigail and David. David's being pursued by Saul and he's on the brink of having nothing. And so he gets to this area where Nabal is. He says, hey, I've been treating your sheep herders with dignity. We've always been great friends. Can you help us out a little bit? And Nabal says I ain't giving you nothing. And so David says, what if that's how you're going to treat me?

Get your swords. And so all of his men, they get their swords, they get their bows and their arrows, and they make their way over to where Nabal is. And who's the wise person in the story? Abigail. She's the woman of valor. She comes to David. She says, don't treat the fool according to his foolishness. And David says this in First Samuel 25:33. Blessed be your discretion and blessed be you who have kept me this day from. Blood, guilt, and from avenging

myself with my own hand.

I think if we take Abigail's approach rather than the David approach, life will simply be better. When you respond with grace, people are going to want to be around you, right? People want to be around people who are graceful. Have you ever thought about this? People run away from a ticking time bomb, but they run towards a Chocolate Factory.

Why is that? Nobody wants to be near something that's about to explode. They want to be near something that's sweet. People want to be near you if you respond with grace. And the other thing is you can actually change the other person's behavior if you respond with grace. Not always, but it could. I remember one time I had a client of mine who I, I, I'm a realtor, so I show a lot of homes and I had to.

He wanted to see a house on a Sunday afternoon. It happened to be my anniversary. And I wasn't readily available. I thought I was probably, you know, a good excuse for not like, at that moment, be ready to show home. He was not happy with it. He's like, you need to be ready and this and that. And I thought to myself, he doesn't care what my excuse is. Let me just try and

respond with grace and see what happens. And so I said, you know what, I'm sorry, how can I be better? And it stopped him in his tracks. He's like, really? He literally said what? What an amazing response. And we've been friends ever since. I joked earlier. The only example I could think of where I responded with grace. Lots of other examples where I haven't, right?

But I think you guys can think of the same thing in your own life. When you respond with grace, you can actually change somebody else's actions. The second thing that Solomon says that you can control is your mouth.

Watch your mouth.

● Speak less

● Speak grace

Verse 12. “The words of a wise man's mouth win him favor, but the lips of a fool consume him. The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness, and the end of his talk is evil madness. A fool multiplies words, though no man knows what is to be and who can tell him what will be.

After him. So here we have the speech of a wise man compared with the speech of a foolish man. So a wise man's speech. Is in a way that brings grace or favor.

OK, grace is actually the word there. A wise man speaks in a way that brings

grace to himself and to other people. The foolish man, on the other hand, speaks too much.

Verse 14, The fool multiplies words. The foolish man. He says things

that are actually ridiculous.

Verse 13. The end of his talk is evil, madness and the foolish

man. His words actually in the end end up hurting him.

It says in verse 12, “The lips of a fool consume him.“ Actually, it says the lips of a man of the fool swallows him up. It's kind of a cool metaphor. He actually says things that are to his detriment.

Now, the good thing is that none of us struggle with this, so we're going to move on to the next one.

I gave that joke first service too, right? It's so hard to control your speech. I mean, it's so hard. James puts it this way. James 3:2. “If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he's a perfect man able to bridle his whole body.” Or or later on in James 3:6, “The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life.”

No human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil. Full of deadly poison.”

So hard to control your mouth. But think of how speech can actually change things.

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln gave a famous speech, the Gettysburg Address. You've probably heard the words ringing in your ears right now. “Four score and seven years ago, our fore fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

And that speech helped lead to the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.

100 years later to the year, Martin Luther King Junior gave a famous speech.

“I have a dream”, right? I have a dream. And it was the most influential speech, I think, in U.S. history. And it really was the iconic speech for the civil rights movement and helped lead to the end of segregation. Your speech can have drastic effects on people. It's true not only at the sort of national level, but it's true at the personal level if you give the right word at the right time.

You can be a blessing to people. Some Proverbs 25:11, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” Is a word spoken in the right circumstances.

And I think of a time when my brother had just the right word for me to hear it, just the right time, and it moved me to action. It literally was like a precious golden apple set in silver settings. I was like, ah, that was so perfect. And you could probably think of examples like that yourself, when your spouse, your cousin, your neighbor, your coworker, somebody gave you just the right words at just the right time.

That's wisdom and action, right? That's wisdom that is actually having a positive effect on your life. The truth is that bad speech, though, can actually be really damaging, right? Think of how many marriages have been ruined

by comments on the soup. Maybe you should guard your speech or think of

how many friendships have been broken because of insensitivity. So how do we control our speech? 2 points here.

Number one, speak less. Solomon says here, verse 14 that it's the fool who multiplies words. Or James puts it the other way around.

James 1:19, “Let everyone be quick to hear and slow to speak.”

So maybe you don't need to share your thoughts about someone's decision you don't agree with. Maybe there's a time when you hold your tongue when your wife says something that rubs you the wrong way. Or kids, maybe you don't respond to your brother or your sister in the way that they treated you, maybe you hold your speech in that instance and you respond wisely and you defuse the situation. One question I think we can ask ourselves before we open our mouths is, is what I'm about to say going to build somebody up or is it going to tear them down?

And honestly, I think when you control your speech, your life is actually going to be better. Another thing we can control, Solomon says, is your work ethic.

Look at verse 18. He says, “Through sloth the roof sinks in and through indolence the house leaps.” Now I don't think I ever used the word sloth or indolence. So I found a little bit better translation here that sounded a little bit better to my ears. “Because of laziness, the roof caves in, and because of idle hands the house leaks.”

And yet the idea that he who is diligent has a better life, he says. Your roof's not going to leak if you're keeping up on it. So a couple of points here on laziness versus diligence.

On the spiritual level, God doesn't like laziness. It's a stewardship issue. If God has given you gifts or given you things and you don't deal with them in a wise manner, He's not going to be happy with that, right? God wants you to manage what He has given you. Well, if you don't do that, it's an offense to Him.

Think of the parable of the talents, Matthew chapter 24:25, because remember that parable? There is an owner and he's about to go on a trip and so he leaves some of his talents with his workers. He gives 5 to 1-2 to another one to another. The guy that gets the five talents, he's actually a good steward of what the master gives him. He does some business with it, multiplies it.

He's got 10 now. The other guy doubles it as well. He's got 2, the third guy.

He says, I know this, this master over here, he's just a wicked mean guy. Let me just bury it in the ground and I'll give it back to him.

The owner comes back and says here takes what's yours. How does the master respond to this servant? He calls him a wicked and slothful servant and then he punishes him.

The point is, God wants us to be diligent with what He's given to us. We're to be good stewards of what He's given to us. It's like if I give my kids money or a gift of some sorts, I want them to be good stewards of it. I don't want them to just waste it.

Colossians 3:17 “And whatever you do, in word or deed,do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

And let me just turn to the kids here for a second, because I know this is probably something that is harder for kids. Are you guys kids? Are you being diligent with what you're tasked to do, or are you being lazy? Right? If your parents ask you to do the chores at the house, are you being slothful, moping around on the couch? Or do you do it diligently? You do it like you're asked to because God's Word says children obey your parents, right? Honor your father and mother. Are you lazy with your homework? With your chores? If your parents want you to go get a job, are you out there actually looking for a job?

Be Diligent (10:18)

Are you being lazy? Be diligent, because God doesn't like laziness. Fact. He's not anti-work. Have you ever thought about that? God told Adam to work the garden even before there was sin in the world. That's at the spiritual level. At the physical level, though, laziness will ruin your life. That's what he says here.

“Through sloth the roof sinks in, and through indolence the house leaks.”

That's what I like about the Bible. It's very practical. You know about the actual things about life. Life will actually be better when you are diligent. Listen to a couple verses here on diligence.

Proverbs 4:10, verse 4A. “Slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes us rich.

Proverbs 1:27 “Whoever is slothful will not roast his game. But the diligent

will gain precious wealth.”

Proverbs 13:4 The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.”

The point is that diligence and hard work will actually produce wealth. Laziness will produce poverty. Now you're probably saying, hold on a second. Is that true 100% of the time? The truth is, there might be an exception here or there, right? But that's not how wisdom works, right? There might be some occasion where laziness doesn't lead to poverty, but generally speaking, that's a true principle, and that's how wisdom literature is in the Bible.

The author who's writing an inspired wisdom saying gives you a truth that is almost always true, and he doesn't bother to mention the one or two exceptions to that. For any situation, there's going to be an exception of some sort, but generally speaking.

Diligence will increase your wealth. Laziness will lead to poverty, right? God

says that if you are diligent, your life will actually be better. And maybe you need to be more diligent with your finances. Maybe you're in debt. Maybe you need to get another job for the time being so you can climb out of that debt that you've put yourself into. Maybe you need to be more diligent with projects around the house.

Sounds a little bit silly maybe, but maybe your wife has been nagging you to get some things done around the house. But that will make your life better. You'll have a better marriage and you'll be able to enjoy the projects that you've completed. Maybe you need to be more diligent with your health.

Maybe you need to be more diligent with your time. Spend a little bit more time with the Lord, with praying. I think all of us can learn from this. God

wants us to be diligent and diligence will actually make our life better.

Because of laziness the building decays and through the idleness of hands the house leaks.

Guard your thoughts. (10:20)

10:20 “Even in your thoughts. Do not curse the king, nor in your bedroom curse the rich, for a bird of the air will carry your voice or some winged creature will tell the matter.”

So I did a little bit of studying, a little bit of research on Google and found that

in a 2020 study, they realized or they found that we typically have over 6000 thoughts per day. A lot of thoughts that works out to be 6.5 thoughts per minute if you're awake 16 hours a day, 80% of them are negative, 95% of them are repetitive. I don't know if that's true, but let's say it's half true. There's a lot of thoughts, right? That's a lot of thoughts. How do you control your thoughts? How do you guard your mind? I mean, your thoughts are really like seeds that you drop into fertile soil and if you cultivate it, if you continue to water it, if you continue to give it the right conditions needed in order for it to grow. Those thoughts can eventually develop into weeds and get out of control.

And that's what Solomon says here. Even in your thoughts, do not curse the king. Now, again, there's two planes to that. There's a spiritual plane, and

let's think about that for a second. Unguarded thoughts are actually sinful.

Have you ever thought that unguarded thoughts are sinful? God's not throughout the whole Bible. He's not only concerned with the external things that you do. Even in the Old Testament, if you offer a sacrifice, but you have the wrong heart, God says just stay at home, I'm not hungry, I don't need your meat, right? Only if you have the right heart, then you offer a sacrifice or it's not.

If you just commit adultery, that's sinful. What does Jesus say in Matthew 5? “I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. God's interested in what goes on in our minds.

That's why Paul says in Romans chapter 12:2, “Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Right. God wants us to renew our minds so that it won't translate into action. That's on the spiritual plane, but on the physical plane, which is what we see here, a very practical book. Unguarded thoughts will actually ruin your life. And there's a chain of events that Solomon mentions here. He says that if you think something about the king, eventually that becomes a word. Eventually you speak that word and somebody hears the word, and eventually they repeat that word. And it makes its way over like a little bird over to the ear of the king. And that's bad news, right? It's nearly impossible to keep a secret totally secret, right? It's nearly impossible to totally keep a secret. Further your whole life, eventually what's in your mind comes out.

Think of a situation at work. Let's say you don't like your boss and all you keep thinking about is how much you can't stand your boss. Eventually you're going to say that to a coworker, your coworker is going to repeat it to somebody else, and eventually that'll make it back to your boss and it's going to be bad news for you. If we just ruminate on the things that we don't like or on something that somebody did that we don't like, the truth is that it's going to make you miserable. It's going to actually ruin your life.

I love this quote from Nelson Mandela. In 1962, he was arrested in South Africa unjustly, spent 27 years in jail, released in 1990. And he famously says as he walked out of jail, he says, “As I walked toward the door of the gate that

would lead to my freedom, I knew that if I didn't leave my bitterness and my hatred behind, I would still be in prison.”

So powerful. He knew that if he were to continue to ruminate on the injustice that he'd served, he would still be in prison. He would be more miserable even after he got out of jail. What a challenge for us. You know, sometimes we just can't let things go. He just continued to think about it in your mind. Now, I'm not saying that. It means we're naive, or that we abandoned our convictions, or that we approve of something that's sinful.

There's a time and a place for that, right? There's a time for calling something out, but there's also a time for giving grace. There's also a time for giving the benefit of the doubt. There's also a time for being forgiving. There's also a time for being understanding, and I think if we focus more on doing that rather than cursing the king in our thoughts or ruminating on things that we don't like, life will probably be better, right? Your life will be ruined if you don't guard

your thoughts.

So in this chapter, Solomon makes 2 general points.’

OK #1 He says that life can be unexpected, you might make a mistake.

You might be involved in an accident. You can't plan for those things. What you can do, though, is just trust in God.

Let him write your story. That's the proper biblical response. The other side of

the wisdom coin is it doesn't mean that we just. Pull the plug, throw caution to the wind. There are some things that we can control in our life, right? And He gives us a few examples.

Control what you can.

Respond with grace.

Watch your mouth.

Be diligent.

Guard your thoughts.

Trust God with the unexpected. But don't sit on your hands either, right? You need to play your part in living life wisely. Let's pray.

Father God, thank you for Your word and the challenge that it is for us.

Lord, none of us live this perfectly and I pray that you would give us the strength and the power to truly live life wisely, to trust you for the unexpected, to just put our lives in our hands and say, Lord, may your will be done in all things. And we know that your loving Father, you work all things together for good, as you say. Help us to trust you with that and then also help us to control what we can in our lives. Help us to control our mouth and our thoughts and actions.

Or that we might honor you and glorify in the way that we glorify you, in the way that we live. Praying Jesus name, Amen.