How to be a Wise Guy (and Gal)

Well, I know that everyone in this room be included has said and done foolish things before. There's a current television commercial that illustrates that very well, and although I am not selling their product today, I think it's worth a look. Let's take a look at it. Humans, we mean well, but we're imperfect creatures living in a beautifully imperfect world. Sometimes the little things get us, and other times, they're not so good. It's amazing we've made it this far. Maybe it's because when one of us messes up, someone else comes along to help out. At Liberty Mutual and Sherrits, we get that it's tough out there. And our job is to make it last time. That's the thing about human. When things are at their worst, we're at our best. Well, maybe you've never done anything quite that foolish, but I'm sure that you have said and done things that you regretted afterwards. You thought that was absolutely crazy for me to do. Well, in a sense, Solomon addresses that in Ecclesiastes Chapter 10. We are in the book of Ecclesiastes. It's been a couple of three weeks since we have found our journey there in that book, but let's get back to it this morning. Where Solomon talks about living with wisdom and not falling. Actually, in the last part of the book, let me just remind you that Solomon is pulling together all of the strands of wisdom and biblical principles that he's developed in the book, pulling them all together, leading us to understand how God wants us to face life. With all of its hard realities, with all of its injustices and difficulties, this is how God wants us to face life. Obviously, first of all, with a relationship with him, knowing him personally, knowing Christ as our Savior in New Testament terms today. But having a relationship with God, then we are responsible to live in a way that honors him and pleases him. Solomon is giving us the way to live. He has already told us to live with enjoyment, to see all of life as a gift from God to be enjoyed fully and thoroughly. He's told us to live with involvement. The race is not always to the swift. The battle is not always to the strong, but it doesn't mean we should back away from life. We should stay engaged and stay involved. He's told us to live with enthusiasm, whatever your hand finds to do with all your might, he said, so live with enthusiasm. And then we saw last time we were in the book of Ecclesiastes at the end of chapter 9, he tells us to live with realism. You remember the story of the wise but poor man who threw some wise strategy and counsel delivered his small town from a large invading army, but he was quickly forgotten. Solomon says, that's realism. That's life that's the way it works. You'll not always be appreciated for what you do and the way you live. But it doesn't mean you should give up because he says, wisdom is still better than folly, regardless of whether or not it's ever recognized or appreciated as such. So live with that sense of realism, but don't let those hard problems and inequities of life destroy you and cause you to quit. Now we come to chapter 10 and Solomon has picked up that theme of wisdom that he ended chapter 9 with. He's going to devote the whole of chapter 10 to it, 20 verses. We'll look at about half of them today and we'll see in these proverbs, and this really is more like the book of Proverbs. In these short pithy sayings, true statements, principles and proverbs we will see today, several marks of a wise person. Before we jump into them, it might be good for us to get a good definition of wisdom and folly because what we think about that is a little different than what the Bible portrays. And so it's important to see that in our culture a wise person is one who is mentally sharp. That's the way we think of wisdom. Wisdom is a person who can see through to the heart of an issue and suggest a proper course of action. That's a wise person we think has to do more with mental ability and capacity and insight. In our culture a fool is one who mentally is incompetent. They do not think straight and thus they do not act properly. That's a fool. Now there's some of that in the biblical concept of wisdom and folly, particularly in the Hebrew mindset, the Old Testament mindset where we are in the book of Ecclesiastes. There's some of that but that does not really define what wisdom and folly is. In the Bible wisdom is far beyond just mental ability or insight. Wisdom, a wise person is one who sees life from God's perspective. One who understands the principles that God lays down for us about how to live life and is obedient to them and lives life according to God's principles. That is a wise person. It goes far beyond intellectual capacity. It involves our moral choices. It involves the act of our will. It involves how we control our emotions. All of those things are involved in a wise approach to life. On the other hand folly, a fool, Biblically speaking, is one who goes his or her own way. Who really does not pay attention to what God says. His principles about life. But just decides he or she will do what they think best. This is the way I want to live. This is the way I was taught or not taught. This is how I want to do it. I'm going to do it my way. That's a fool according to the Bible. Wisdom and folly is beyond mental capacity. We will see that fleshed out in the chapter 10 of Ecclesiastes. This morning we're going to look at three marks. We'll look at some more next week. But three this morning of a wise person. The first mark of wisdom that Solomon gives us in the first three verses is the absence of folly. You might expect that. The opposite of wisdom is folly. The opposite of being wise is to be foolish. So Solomon says wisdom is first of all marked by the absence of folly. Now what he actually does in the first three verses is he warns us of the dangers of folly. And there are three of them in the first three verses. Three dangers of folly he warns us about. Wise person will stay away from these. The first one in verse one is this. Folly has a tremendous power to undo good. Tremendous power to undo good. Look at what he says in verse one. Again, these are proverbs which often use word pictures to get across the point. As dead flies give perfume a bad smell. So a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. What Solomon is saying basically is that folly a little folly can undo a lot of good and he illustrates it beautifully with perfume. By the way, this is where we get the expression of fly in the ointment from this verse. If you were to go into a store and you were scanning the shelves of expensive perfumes to buy one, you pulled one off the shelf and you noticed there's a dead fly in there. Would you buy it? Probably not. Because a fly, that's just a little thing. I mean you can take it out. Refume's okay, right? You're not going to buy a bottle of perfume that has a fly in it and the point is not necessarily that it will make it smell that bad. That's not really Solomon's point. His point is that a little folly can undo a great amount of good. His point basically is that it takes far less to ruin something than it does to build it. That it does to create it. His point morally speaking and in the latter part of the verse. So a little folly outweighs is much heavier than wisdom and honor. Just a little folly can ruin a life of honor and dignity. It doesn't take much. Ask Moses. Because of a flash of anger and a response of anger, he forfeit that his right to see or to go into the promised land. The Bible calls Moses the meekest man in all the earth at his time, but he had this little streak in him. You see it come up three or four times in his life of this impetuous anger at times and just lashing out. And when that happened in the wilderness when he struck the rock when God told him to speak to it, God said, okay, that's enough. That's enough. You are not going to go into the promised land. A little folly outweighed. A lot of good. Ask David. What do you remember David for most of all? Probably his sin with Bathsheba. But the Bible calls David a man after God's own heart. Look at the 75 Psalms that he wrote and you see a man whose heartbeat is passionate for God. And he was a good king. But in an act in a moment of moral weakness and laxity, he made a foolish choice and then a bunch of others to try to cover it up and ended up in that one foolish action and direction, losing his family, almost losing his kingdom at one point, literally losing his kingdom to the rebellious son, Absalom. A little folly can undo a lot of wisdom and honor. A little folly undoes undoes a lot of good. That's it really doesn't undo it. That's what Salman's talking about. It doesn't take much. That demonstrates for us vividly the importance of dealing with weaknesses and not letting them develop, not letting them go. You see a little fly in the ointment of your character. Deal with it. Deal with it because if you don't, it will ruin the whole batch. It will be like Levin. And it will give a bad smell to the whole bottle of perfume. A little folly. A little folly has tremendous power to undo good. Second danger and warning that Solomon gives us about folly is this. Folly has tremendous power to affect the whole course of your life. It's inverse two. The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. That is not a political slogan by the way. Here's the point. In the Bible, the right signified first of all the place of honor. At a banquet, the host would seat the special guest on his right. Where is Jesus seated in heaven right now at the right hand of the father? It's the place of honor. But in the Old Testament, the right also signifies the right side or the right hand also signifies the place of power and protection, particularly protection. Look at these verses just to illustrate it. Psalm 16, verse 8. I keep my eyes, said the psalmist, I keep my eyes always on the Lord with him at my right hand. I will not be shaken. Place of protection with him at my right hand. He goes on to say in 1215, the Lord watches over you. The Lord is your shade at your right hand. That place of protection. That comes from the idea in olden days and ancient times, soldiers would carry their shield with their right hand. They were trained to do battle with their sword or spear with their left hand. They would protect themselves with their right hand. The right hand was the place of protection. And so what Solomon is saying is that a wise person inclines to the right, to the place that will end up honoring him, protecting him, the place of power. Basically it's this with apologies to all of you lefties out there today. The right, inclining to the right, is right choices, wise choices, walking the right, godly moral path in life. Taking the left is to go to the evil path of life, the wrong way, making immoral or foolish choices. So the wise person inclines, leans, bends to the direction of the right, of that which is biblical and that which is moral and upstanding and godly. And the foolish person goes the other direction, goes toward folly, does not go toward the way of wisdom. By the way, even the Latin word for left is sinister. Sinister, down through the centuries that moral concept has been ingrained in these two right and left, right is the way of moral success. The left is the way of moral ruin. It's been an interesting book written called Over the Edge, Death in the Grand Canyon written by Michael Giggly-Giggly-Ary. He chronicles the nearly 700 deaths in the Grand Canyon since 1870s. And you would expect that there would be a number of accidents in death there after all the Grand Canyon is 277 miles long. At times it is 18 miles wide, it is a mile deep, over 6,000 feet deep, it is the Grand Canyon. And there are lots of reasons why people could find themselves in difficulty there. High temperatures at the base often lead to dehydration and exhaustion quickly. There are other reasons. The main reason he found for deaths in the Grand Canyon was air traffic accidents, the sight-seeing helicopters that fly over the Grand Canyon. Another reason was whitewater rafting in the people who are killed in the whitewater turbulence. But one reason he found that was near the top of the list is simply people's foolishness, foolish choices. People who do not heed the warning signs and get too close to the edge or do something foolish that leads to a catastrophic accident. He gives a number of examples of that. For example, in 1992 he tells about a 38-year-old father who was jokingly trying to frighten his teenage daughter, she is taking pictures and filming this incident. And he climbs up on a guard wall that is supposed to stay behind and acts like he is losing his balance and falling. He knows there is some area behind him. So he acted like he was falling behind the wall. What he did not realize in spite of all the warning signs is that that ledge was not secure. He lost his footing once he hit some soft rock, some rock that was loose and tumbled 400 feet to his death. Just last year you may remember this one on the news in 2012 and 18-year-old woman who was hiking the North Rim Trail decided to venture off the beaten path, have her picture taken on the edge at a place called Inspiration Point. There were warning signs not to leave the path and not to go out too close to the edge when she got out there and knelt down again some rock gave way. She plummeted 1500 feet to her death. She did not have any foolish choices not observing the warning signs, thinking I know better, I can handle this, I know what I am doing. Solomon is saying there are a lot of people in life like that. People who say it doesn't matter what God says, that is an old ancient book. As Sarah was saying some people see this and they think that is just ancient words, doesn't really apply to today. There could be nothing more applicable to life today than this book. People who say, well we are in a lightened society, we know better, we can live our own way, we know what is right or wrong or whether there is an absolute right or wrong. We are going to live our own way. Absolute folly the Bible says, you violate God's warning signs and you will pay for it. Folly has tremendous power to affect the whole course of your life. You incline one way to follow God's principles and your life will be the better for it. You incline the other way against God's principles and you will destroy your life. That is Solomon's warning in verse 2. There is the third warning in verse 3. That is that folly cannot be disguised. He says it so amusingly in verse 3. He says even as fools walk along the road they lack sense and show everyone how stupid they are. That is pretty direct, isn't it? His point is you can't hide it. If you choose, if you are a fool you can't hide it. You say, well wait a second. I can, no, that person can hide it pretty well. Let's take a little journey through the description of a fool in the book of Proverbs. These are Proverbs written by the same author. Solomon does a masterful job of describing the fool and the wise person in the book of Proverbs. It is an excellent study sometimes. I would commend it for your study if you would like to do that. Let's just take a little journey. This is not all that Proverbs says about a fool but in relationship particularly to his speech. This is what Proverbs says. The only way a fool can hide his folly is through silence. Proverbs 17, 28. Notice on the screen even fools are thought wise. If they keep silent and discerning, if they hold their tongues. The only way to hide folly is just to be quiet, not speak up. The problem is a fool can't keep quiet. He has to talk. She has to voice all the opinions. 15, too. The tongue of the wise adorns knowledge. Very carefully dresses it. But the mouth of the fool, gosh, it's folly. You can see the word picture difference there. Gushes folly. Look at 29, 11. The tongue or fools give full vent to their rage. But the wise bring calm in the end. And full vent to our rage. That's a fool. So in order to cover it up a fool tries to use eloquent speech but it doesn't come outright. 17, 7. eloquent lips are unsuited to a godless fool. How much worse lying lips to a ruler? Try to be eloquent and fancy with words. It just doesn't come outright. Doesn't sound right. That's a fool. When you talk a fool doesn't listen. 18, too. Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. So when you're talking a fool will not listen. When he or she talks a fool has no tact. No diplomacy, no feel for the right thing to say 18, 6. The lips of fools bring them strife and their mouths invite a beating. That's graphic, isn't it? Basically saying the way they talk just invites you to hit them in the kisser. Just give them one. And that would be foolish to do. Obviously. But a fool speech brings that out of you. So a fool will try to speak wise rebukes but again it doesn't fit 26, 7 and 9. Like the useless legs of one who is lame is a proverb in the mouth of a fool. Like a thorn bush in a drunkard's hand. Just think of that image for a moment. A proverb is a proverb in the mouth of a fool. A fool cannot speak wisely about life. And he even can't get messages right when he's given a message to send 26, 6 says sending a message by the hands of a fool is like cutting off one's feet or drinking poison. So the Bible does not treat a fool very kindly. There's not a very good picture of a fool in speech or in action. And what Solomon is saying in verse 3 is that you really can't hide it. You see there are a number of ways that he says in in Proverbs you can detect a fool. You can see it in their speech. You can see it in their actions. And I've just given you the verses of about the speech. There's a lot more in Proverbs but you can't hide it. Warning about folly. Solomon warns us of the dangers and basically says if you want to live with wisdom, pray and work toward the absence of folly in your life because folly is terribly dangerous. It can undo a lot of good. A whole lifetime of good. It can affect your whole course of life the way you go, the way you walk, where you end up. And it cannot be disguised. To live with wisdom means to live with the absence of folly. Secondly, to live with wisdom means to live with calmness. Calmness. Or you might say patience. Someone has said patience can be defined as the ability to count down before you blast off. Really I think that's an inadequate view of patience. I like better this description. Patience is the ability to call off the launch after the engines have been ignited. You know the fuels burning and you're ready to blow and you just call off the launch. That's patience. That's calmness. And notice how Solomon describes calmness. First of all, when you are confronted with personal injury with personal injury in verse four, if a ruler's anger rises against you, do not leave your post calmness can lay great offenses to rest. It's obviously a picture of personal injury. Here's someone in authority, a ruler who treats you wrongly, whose anger rises against you. And so how are you going to respond? You know what the Amacho American way is? If they do something to me, I'd do it right back to them. Right? I give them a dose of their own medicine. They're not going to get by with that with me. That's not the scriptural way to deal with things, not the way Jesus dealt with things in his own life and ministry crosses a tremendous example of it. How he did not strike back and retaliate. What what proverb says and what the clasacity says what wisdom says if a ruler's anger rises against you, do not leave your post. The word post is a word literally the Hebrew word my comb, which means place. It has the idea of your job or your position. Okay, so someone in authority, the boss gets angry and just really gives it to you. Don't walk out and anger yourself. Don't quit your job. Oh, it feels magnificent and you think you're acting on the basis of principle, but it's foolish. It's foolish. Proverbs says, clasacity says. It's a foolish response. What is the right and wise response? Calmness. You see it there. Calmness can lay great offenses to rest. Word calmness is an interesting word. It has the idea of being unruffled. It has the idea of being relaxed. The new American standard translates that I believe composure and the idea is being able to keep your composure remaining calm with an emotionally charged situation. Somebody is angry at you and they're letting you have it. Okay, what's your response to remain calm? And what Solomon says is that can lay great offenses to rest. It's not the American way. I understand that. It's not the macho way. It is the biblical way. Solomon says it in these words in Proverbs 15, a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Okay, you come right back at him with the same level of intensity of anger and harshness that you received. What does that do? That ratchets the whole thing up. Another level of intensity wise. And then they come back and you come back and the whole thing is about ready to explode. And a lot of damage can be done. In marriages between parents and children, in friendships and relationships, a lot of damage. Solomon says when confronted with personal injury remain calm. Number of years ago, Tim Le Hei, who was one of the co-authors of the left behind series, Tim Le Hei wrote a number of books, a number of years ago, a book entitled Anger is a Choice. And in that book, which was written in the 70s, he had interviewed a bunch of pro athletes. And he had some interesting quotes in there. One of them by Norm Evans, it was an all-protackled with the Miami D'Offense for a number of years, one of the best offensive linemen in the game in that era said this. He said, it's really dangerous for a pro football player to get angry. In fact, when that's when linemen sustained their most serious injuries. And here's why he said that. Anger is so harmful in football that if I can get an opposing lineman or a linemaker angry at me, he will concentrate on beating me and forget to attack the quarterback. He's just helped me do my job. Protect the quarterback. Mike Fuller, who was a safety and a return specialist with the San Diego Chargers back in that era, also said this. The wide receivers are continually trying to make us angry. Each time they come into our area, and you see this in pro football, a lot of the line of jaw back and forth, trash talk. They're trying to make the defensive back angry. And Mike Fuller said, here's the reason why they know that if they can upset us emotionally, they can fool us on the next play. Because we won't be focused on what we're supposed to do. Interesting. Interesting. And he quotes some other folks too, including a judo guy who won the World Championship. He said, I was just an average judo guy, but I learned how to get my opponent mad. And that's how I won the championship. The smarter than he was. Anger can be your undoing. Calmness, Solomon says, is the way of wisdom when confronted with personal injury. But also it's the same response. It is the wise response when confronted with inequity. Now here's where it gets hard to live by biblical principles. Here's where our human nature says this just won't work. But when you're confronted with inequity, here's what the Bible says to the verse 5. There is an evil I've 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 lowlands. I've seen slaves on horseback while princes go on foot like slaves. What's he talking about? He's talking about the tendency of a ruler, someone in authority to put his cronies into place. He's talking about nepotism. He's talking about putting my favorites into place, my family members, people who may not have any competence. They may be fools, but they're put in place and the fools or the wise people who have the competence to do those jobs are left out. That's inequity. And what he's doing in verses 5 through 70s is illustrating what he's the principle that he's laid down in verse 4. So the same principle applies. Calmness. How do you respond to that when you see inequity? You respond with calmness. You don't quit, you don't turn around and I'll hop and say I'm out of here, I quit, you don't do that. Biblically, the Bible says you remain calm, you recognize there are inequities and hard things about life in the realistic approach to life. And you just do your job to the glory of God. Do what you're supposed to do to the glory of God. Let him take care of the results. And he will. It's interesting the contrast Solomon makes in verse 6. It's one that you would not expect. The fools are in high positions while the rich occupy the low. You might expect the word wise in their rather than rich. And some have faulted the writer of the book for having an improper perspective here. By the way, if you read commentaries on these books, you can really come up with some crazy ideas. Some have faulted Solomon for a kind of class warfare here. But obviously he's not doing that. He obviously has in mind the person here who has attained wealth because they were prudent because they were a wise manager of their resources. In other words, they knew how to run their personal lives. They would have been the best candidates to run a government agency in Old Testament time. The king should have put them in power, but the fool is in power, not the guy who knows how to house that and who has become wealthy because of prudence and wise management. So the end result in verse 7, I've seen slaves on horseback princes on foot like slaves. In words, the fools are riding in the limos and the wise guys are taking the bus in equity in life. Unfairness, injustice. How do you handle that? Solomon says, don't leave your post. Don't strike back with anger. Respond with composure, with calmness. Be the better person, be the more biblical, the more Christlike person, respond with calmness. Now I know whenever you use Jesus as an example, what I always hear is, well he drove the people out of the temple, he was angry. Yeah, right. He did. There was a special reason for that, however, it was a terrible abuse of a place that was to be sacred and reserved for the worship of God. It was a spiritual apostasy and adultery that Jesus was reacting against, not a personal slight. Don't use that as an example of how to respond to personal slights. That's not at all what it's intended for. The biblical response is calmness. That's the way of wisdom. Third, Solomon says, a person of wisdom is marked by caution. Versus 8 through 11, he develops this idea of caution. Let me summarize it first and we'll look at how he develops it. Basically what it's going to say in verses 8 through 11 is that every course in life has its risks, yes, and dangers. But a wise person anticipates those, does what he can to guard against them. A wise person is not reckless, in other words. She will not just rush into things without thinking through things first. That's the point in verses 8 through 11. Let's see how he develops it. First of all, in verses 8 and 9, he admits the inevitable dangers and risks in life. Whoever digs a pit may fall into it. He's going to get four examples of the inevitable risks and dangers in life. Everything you do has some risk involved, some danger involved. One of them is if you dig a pit. Well, what are you out there digging a pit for anyway? Well, in that culture probably for trapping animals. So you dig the pit, you cover it up real good, then you forget where it was, and you're the one that falls into it rather than the animal or just because of carelessness. So there's that risk. In the verse 8, whoever breaks through a wall may be bitten by a snake. Taring down an old wall, not cautious of the fact that there may be reptiles there. Some of you have come across that with moving old firewood, an old pile of firewood, or maybe gathering up stones out of a field or something like that. Recently, Jeanne and I were away and we were taking a tour of a nature preserve and the naturalist was showing us various things. And he showed us some stumps along the salt marshes where we were and he said, in those stumps, there's often hollowed out places underneath them. And most people who don't understand what's going on here like to figure out what's in there. And so they all shine a flashlight in or something. He said, that's where our poisonous snakes reside. So you don't want to go snooping around under a stump or a hollow opening underneath it. That's what Solomon's warning about. Be cautious. You know, express them. There's some risk involved in this. He gets two other examples. Verse 9, whoever quarries stones may be injured by them. When you recognize that quarrying in that day was done by hand. And quite often like in the building of the temple, there were huge stones. The foundation stones of Solomon's temple were 120 tons chiseled out by hand. An incredible engineering feat. There's some risk involved in that, right? One of those gets loose. It can do some damage. And then whoever splits logs may be endangered by them. I remember a guy in our church in Indiana who went out into the woods by himself. Danger number one to cut down some trees. And he had one just about cut and he'd moved off. He thought it was going to fall a certain way and all of a sudden it whipped around and clipped both of his legs, broke both of his legs. And he laid out there into woods for hours till finally someone realized he hadn't come home. And so, these are the life verses of Oshah executives. I mean, they'd be plastering the quarry and the stand of trees and the pit and the wall with signs, you know, posters. Obviously, there are risks and dangers in every part of life. And for that reason, Solomon highlights in verse 10, the advantage of caution. The advantage of caution. If the axe is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed, but skill will bring success. You get the word picture here. Here's a guy who has a dull axe and he's just whacking away with all of his strength. He'll cut down some trees, but it's going to take him a lot more effort than the guy who takes time to sharpen his dull axe. That's skill. That's caution. That's taking the time to prepare your tools first. The kind of person Solomon's talking about anticipates the risk, anticipates the danger, takes precautions, even time to prepare the tools properly. Before just jumping in, you know, with everything flailing whichever way, this kind of person will have better success if you express caution. If there's a certain amount of diligence involved here, there's a certain amount of time to take care of things, to cover the details, to do something right rather than just plunging in and saying, I'll barge my way through this. Solomon said, no, no, the way of wisdom is caution. Do you know what a people driver is? Everyone in this room when I describe it will know what it is in this area and further north. A people driver is a person who goes out to their car in the dead of winter and it is covered with ice. And so you get your windshield scraper and you get the snow off and you start digging through the ice with that windshield scraper. And you know, it's going to take you 15 minutes and you're already going to be late for work. And so you open up about a size of a personal pan pizza in your front windshield. And you know, it's going to take you another 10 or 15 minutes to do anymore and you've got your heater running on the inside. You think, well, in a few minutes, that thing will start to work in the defrost. So I'm going to do the same thing and you go to the back window and it's even a smaller pizza at that time. And then you do a little bit on the sides and you get in your car and you take off to your horror, you realize you're sitting up on the edge of your seat looking through that little people and you can't see. You can't see what's coming and the windshield's fogging up rather than, rather than clearing up into your ultimate horror, the people coming toward you are driving through their people as well. And so how many accidents happen because of that kind of thing? Because you simply don't take the time to get the ice off of the windshield. That's what Solomon's talking about. Wisdom, skill, brings success. Even if you have to sharpen the axe, even if you have to take the time to do the whole windshield. Caution. Caution is the way of wisdom. Now, there's a balance to that because you can take caution way too far. And you can be so cautious that you're afraid to move on anything, you're afraid to take any action, you're afraid to do anything. And so Solomon balances it out a little bit in verse 11 by saying, here's a caution, it's the folly of acting too late. Folly of acting too late, the folly of waiting too long. And he gives a really humorous illustration of it. Look at verse 11. If a snake bites before it is charmed, the charmer receives no fee. Now, we miss the beauty of this because we don't do snake charming in our culture. But it was very popular form of entertainment in that time, especially in royal courts. You would have a person who was very skilled at using music or soothing words to lure a snake, certain snakes that would come out of the basket. You've maybe seen it on television or a movie or something. Where snake charmer can actually cause a snake to rise up out of a basket and it's really kind of weird. But what Solomon has in mind is a guy who's ready to start the entertainment, but he's arguing with the customer about the price for the entertainment. And as he's dickering with the customer for the price of what he's going to charge for the entertainment, the snake is already slurred out of the basket and bit the customer. Do you think the customer is going to pay to see it charmed now? Of course not. The snake charmer has lost his ability to gain revenue because he was slothful because he waited too long. He procrastinated too long. And that's the balance. Solomon basically is saying there's no profit in having snake charming ability if you wait too long to use it. And it is possible to wait too long because of laziness, because of less important concerns, the danger of procrastination, you may lose your opportunity altogether. And I think that's a good note to end on. Yes, a wise person lives with caution, but my friend, you can be too cautious, especially when it comes to spiritual things. You can be too cautious and you can procrastinate too long. In fact, I would say this, there is no more foolish action in life than waiting too late to settle your eternal destiny. If you wait too long, if you procrastinate too much, then the snake is going to strike before you've done what you should have done. Here's my point. You can wait and wait and wait on the issue of your eternal destiny, where you're going to spend eternity. What's going to happen to you when you die? Will you go to heaven or will you spend eternity in hell separated from God altogether? You may think you've got a lot of time to deal with that issue, you've got a long life ahead of you. Remember what Solomon said about the dangers and risks inherent in everything in life? None of us knows when our last day is going to be. So that promotes caution. Yes, but you can be too cautious and you can say, I will wait until I know I can live this life. I don't want to be a hypocrite. I don't want to not be able to live up to it and so you wait and you wait and you wait until it's too late. There's no more foolish decision or action in life than that. And so my friend, why don't you just throw away the caution that keeps you from Christ, come to Him as your Savior today. He will then give you the strength and the ability to live as you ought to and your eternal destiny will be settled before it's too late. Let's pray together. Father, I thank you for wisdom from your Word. Lord, we all at times do foolish things, make foolish choices, help us father to live with wisdom. Help us to live in a way that demonstrates we understand your principles and we want to live by them. And I pray especially for those who may be here today without Christ that they would realize the danger in procrastinating and putting it off with less important things in life until it's too late. Their whole eternal destiny is a result of foolish choices. Father, speak to hearts today and draw people to yourself. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.