Keep Wising Up - Ecclesiastes 10:12-20 Series

10:12 The words from the mouth of a wise man are gracious, but the lips of a fool consume him. 13 The beginning of the words of his mouth is folly, but the end of his speaking is evil madness. 14 Yet the fool multiplies words. No one knows what will happen, and who can tell anyone what will happen after him? 15 The struggles of fools weary them, for they don't know how to go to the city. 16 Woe to you, land, when your king is a youth and your princes feast in the morning. 17 Blessed are you, land, when your king is a son of nobles and your princes feast at the proper time-- for strength and not for drunkenness. 18 Because of laziness the roof caves in, and because of negligent hands the house leaks. 19 A feast is prepared for laughter, and wine makes life happy, and money is the answer for everything. 20 Do not curse the king even in your thoughts, and do not curse a rich person even in your bedroom, for a bird of the sky may carry the message, and a winged creature may report the matter.

Introduction

The last few months we have been studying through the book of Ecclesiastes, and we left off last time in the middle of chapter 10. The closing chapters of this book are made up of assorted proverbs and wisdom sayings that give us insight into the way life tends to go so we can make wise decisions. There are eight of them in this chapter, and we looked at the first four last time:

1) When someone gets mad at you, stay calm

2) Expect trouble in life so you can prepare for it and roll with it when it happens.

3) Sharpen your ax. Get training, do some planning – work smart and have some systems in your life.

4) Use your ax. Know when it is time to stop planning and preparing and training and time to start springing into action before it’s too late.

Those were the first four. The fifth one comes in verse 12.

Watch Your Mouth

12 The words from the mouth of a wise man are gracious, but the lips of a fool swallow him up. 13 The beginning of the words of his mouth is folly, but the end of his speaking is evil madness. 14 Yet the fool multiplies words.

Fools Talk too Much

Think of the three wisest people you know. How many of them are chatterboxes? Of all the people in this room who thought of all those wise people, it wouldn’t surprise me if not one of you thought of someone who is known for being a motor mouth. Why? Because when you gain wisdom, one of the first things you figure out is that no matter how wise you are, a fair percentage of the things that come out of your mouth will be dumb. That is just a given. So wise people know that the best way to reduce the number of dumb things you say is by reducing the number of things you say altogether. And beyond that, wise people tend to think before they speak. Instead of just blurting out whatever thoughts come into their head, they actually process them first, because they know that almost never does anyone ever blurt out wisdom. To say something worthwhile requires some thought. And many times it requires so much thought that by the time you do think of the right thing to say, the conversation is already over. Or the subject has been changed. So if you are wise enough to actually think before you speak, very often you never even get the chance to say what you thought of because of the time you spent doing the thinking. That is another reason why wise people tend to talk less – they think before they speak. Semi-foolish people will think while they are speaking. Fully foolish people just speak instead of thinking, and so the flow of words just never stops. Plato was right: “Wise men speak because they have something to say. Fools speak because they have to say something.”

Over-Talking Ruins Your Life

And the result of that is his words swallow him up (v.12). All those words become a huge pit that he ends up falling into. Many people are ruining their life – not with too much alcohol, not by gambling all their money away, not by getting hooked on drugs, but by chattering their way into constant trouble. If you talk a lot, some of what comes out of your mouth will be gossip – it is inevitable. And some of what comes out of your mouth will be exaggeration, or some form of dishonesty. Some of it will reflect misinformation. Some of it will end up being the wrong word at the wrong time that you just walk away thinking, “Why can’t I learn to keep my big mouth shut?”