Ecclesiastes 10
McGeeCHAPTER 10We see here that the injustice of life suggests the adoption of a moderate course.
Ecclesiastes 10:1
Life is full of illustrations of this truth. One night on the town can mean a lifetime in the darkness of disease or even death. An officer in a church I served years ago told me, “I was brought up in a Christian home, and I really never did run around, but when I went away from home and got a job, I went out with the fellows one night. That is the only night in my life that I went out, and that is the night I got a venereal disease. I had to postpone marriage for several years, and I had to break off an engagement with a sweet, lovely girl.” Just one dead fly will ruin the ointment of the apothecary. How tragic! A mother spends twenty-one years teaching a son to be wise, and some girl will come along and make a fool out of him in five minutes. What a picture! A little folly, a little foolishnessthat is all it takes. It can be the thing that can ruin a life and spoil the lives of others.
Ecclesiastes 10:2
The right hand is the hand of strength. A wise man’s heart is at his right hand. Whatever he does, he does it with all his heart. He doesn’t do it reluctantly. The fool’s heart is at his left hand. He just does things in a halfhearted way. My friend, whatever you do, do it with heart. If you are going to serve God, do it with joy and excitement. Don’t make the Christian life a drudge. Make it something worthwhile. Whatever you do, do it with excitement.
Ecclesiastes 10:3
A fool does not have to carry a placard on himself that says, “I am a fool.” The fact of the matter is that all he has to do is open his mouth. Sometimes he doesn’t even have to open his mouth to prove that he is a fool. Sometimes at community meetings people will get up to express a viewpoint. A man will make a thoughtful suggestion, and I will think, My, I didn’t know my neighbor was so intelligent. Then a fellow gets up to speak, and the minute he opens his mouth, I look at my friend sitting next to me and arch my eyebrows. The Bible calls him a fool, and he tells everyone what he is.
Ecclesiastes 10:4
The man under the sun is going to take the position of yielding in order to pacify. In other words, “If you can’t fight city hall, join them.”
Ecclesiastes 10:5
This is one of the things that has happened in our day and age: a dignity has been given to sin. There was a time when sin was down on the sidestreet. It was considered dirty and filthy, and it savored of that which was low and foul. But today sin has moved up on the boulevard. Sin is committed with great dignity, and it has been given a prominent place. It is given a prominent place on TV shows. I noticed the other day that they interviewed a stripper on a TV show, that is, a girl who takes off her clothes in a nightclub. When I was a young fellow in my teens, living a life away from God, we would sneak off on Saturday night to go to such shows. It was dirty; it was filthy. Today they call it an art form! Today sin is handled in such a dignified way. “Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place.” Have you heard interviews with the ordinary citizen or with the ordinary Christian? These are the people who are making the finest contribution to their community and to their society. Are they the ones who are interviewed? No, they occupy a low place. You never hear of them. The attention is focused on the ones who are the sinners and oddballs.
Ecclesiastes 10:7
To work hard, save your money, and study late do not always mean that you will become a success. The fool next door may inherit a million dollars. Sometimes it is the fool who rides the horse, while the prince walks as the servant. I know many wonderful Christiansacross this land I have had the privilege of meeting some of the most wonderful people who are humble folk. Many of them live in humble homes; some of them are financially well-to-do. But they are ignored. They are “princes walking as servants upon the earth” today. What a picture!
Ecclesiastes 10:8
If you think that you can get by with sin, especially if you are a child of God, you are very foolish. God may not act immediately, but all you need to do is wait; God will eventually judge you for it. I have watched that over the years. Christians do things that are wrong and seem to get by with it, but somewhere down the line God begins to move in on them, and He takes them to His woodshed.
Ecclesiastes 10:9
Removing stones in that day was removing the markers of property lines. This is saying again that one cannot get by with sin. Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. If you try to cheat someone out of his property, or anything else, God will see to it that you will get hurt. This is the reason the Lord tells us that we are not to avenge ourselves. The Lord says, “…Vengeance is mine; I will repay …” (Rom_12:19). The Lord is the One who will settle the accounts.
Ecclesiastes 10:10
If the hoe gets dull, you will sharpen it, if you have any sense at all. A dull hoe makes digging that much harder. Unfortunately, many people are not willing to do the thing that will sharpen the hoe. A young man told me the other day that God had called him to preach, and he wanted to take a short course to prepare himself. I said, “Young man, don’t do that. Sharpen your hoe. Sharpen your sword. Don’t go out untrained. Take the time for sharpening.” It is foolish to take out a dull hoe and expect to cut down many weeds. Sharpen the hoe and then move in on the weed patch. The Book of Ecclesiastes has some great lessons for us to learn. It is an unusual book.
Ecclesiastes 10:11
We need to understand the practices of the East if we are going to understand this verse. It is very similar to Psa_58:4-5: “Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.” The same idea is found in Jeremiah. “For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the LORD” (Jer_8:17). The adder is a very deadly reptile. We have all seen pictures of the Indian fakirs (and I believe it would be just as correct to spell it fakers) who play a doleful sort of tune on a horn to charm the cobra. The cobra does a sort of dance; I suppose one could call it the cobra hula dance. The cobra will not strike as long as the tune is being played on that horn. Now I don’t know about you, but if I had one of those horns, and a cobra came along, I’d be a long-winded personI’d play as long as I possibly could. But there will come a time when the cobra or the adder will not listen, and finally he will strike. When he does strike, it means death. The “serpent” in the passages we have quoted probably is not referring to literal snakes. I think it is referring to that person, “babbler,” who will deceive you, who will betray you, a Judas Iscariot. After all, that’s what Antichrist will be to the nation of Israel in the great Tribulation Period. Even among people in the church you will find those who will say things that are not true. “Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment; and a babbler is no better.” He may pose as your friend, but he is going to bite you like a serpent no matter how nice you are to him. This was the kind of sorrow that David felt when his friend Ahithophel turned against him. Ahithophel had been his counselor and his personal friend, but he left David and went with Absalom when Absalom rebelled. That broke David’s heart. I think David was a broken man after the rebellion of Absalom. Up to that time, I doubt that there had ever been a ruler like King David in his prime. After that time of rebellion David became an old man. He pours out his heart in Psalms 55, and this is the picture we get. Solomon is saying that in view of the possibility of this happening, one should be very careful. I would say that that is the philosophy of life of the average person today. He is the do-gooder who walks in the middle of the road. He has been told to be careful with So-and-So, who can repeat what he says and twist it. So when Mr. Do-gooder faces these people he adopts a very sweet attitude toward them, but he is very careful about what he says. Sometimes it seems that we actually should confront the kind of person who takes facts and twists them and point out to that person exactly what he or she is doing. However, I know from experience that if you point this out, you will be attacked in a most vicious manner.
Ecclesiastes 10:12
“The lips of the fool will swallow up himself” and those who are around him as well. That is why one should be careful in making friends and choosing the right kind of friends. When I taught school, I always advised the freshman class, “You are going to make friends here that will be friends with you for life. You may even meet your mate here (and of course some of them did), so be careful about the friends you make.” When my daughter went away to college, I gave her that same advice. I told her she would have the greatest opportunity of all her life to make some wonderful friendships. But I advised her to be careful in choosing her friends. There are some people who will try to destroy you. There are people who are like the adder or the serpent. If you are nice to them and can keep them charmed, things will go well, but be very careful how you act in their presence. This is good advice, my friend, but it is a middle-of-the-road course, as you can see.
Ecclesiastes 10:13
How true this is. Have you ever noticed that if you have a group and you throw out a topic for an open discussion, there will generally be some loquacious person in that group. (I believe that now they call such sessions “rap” sessions. When I was young, we called them “bull” sessions.) Usually some person who likes to talk will take over the discussion, and often he will say foolish, absurd things. The group begins to wish that person would keep his mouth shut. This is one reason why I am not very fond of open discussions. When I have a question and answer period, I always encourage people to write out their questions. If you don’t do that, you will almost invariably find one babbler in the group, one talker who comes under this category of being a troublemaker. Someone has described such a person as one whose brain starts his mouth working, and then the brain goes off and leaves it.
Ecclesiastes 10:15
Today we would say the fool doesn’t know enough to come in out of the rain.
Ecclesiastes 10:16
They give themselves over to pleasure instead of ruling the people properly and being a blessing to the land.
Ecclesiastes 10:17
The big problem in our country is not drugs but liquor. The number of alcoholics in this country is now in the millions. Probably we cannot get an accurate figure on the number of alcoholics because of the liquor interests, but it is a real cause for alarm. There are too many cocktail parties in Washington where the political decisions are being made. “Blessed art thou, O land, when …thy princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness!”
Ecclesiastes 10:18
This is an indictment of laziness, of the refusal to work. I’m afraid that is becoming a way of life in our country today. A common greeting is, “Take it easy” and “Have a good day.” In other words, do as little as possible and have as much fun as you can.
Ecclesiastes 10:19
Many of the rich have moved to the middle of the road. They want to be liberal and yet they want to be conservative.
Ecclesiastes 10:20
“Curse not the king.” Regardless of our president’s political party or his views, I do not feel that he should be caricatured or made an object of ridicule. In the New Testament Peter says, “…Honour the king” (1Pe_2:17).