FOOL PROOF
ECCLESIASTES 10:1
As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.
Imagine yourself enjoying some delicious meal in a café or at a friend’s dinner and then as you enjoy the soup, suddenly you see a dead lizard within the gravy, or a cockroach with it’s antennas and feelers swimming dead in the meat…! imagine! Can you continue enjoying the meal with such a picture painted in your mind?
I visited a relative of mine one day and after the delicious meal that was prepared specially for me, I was served with a mug of yoghurt. As we continued enjoying, I found a dead housefly in the milk. I removed it without drawing attention from those sharing the same. It was hard for me to continue gulping down the ‘sweet’ yoghurt unlike the rest in the dining room who gulped the contents with ease! Had they known the kind of a fly I had seen in my milk…..! I felt sick in the stomach but I had to compose myself and finish the contents as a gentleman could possibly do.
In the same manner, God faces such situations as Christians of different degrees present themselves before the Lord. This generation cares less over their physical presentation even before the Lord. Today, we find men and women in church services dressed awfully as if to tell the others ‘see, we are around!’. Ladies on miniskirts, see-through-me gowns, skin tights (you just take a glimpse at the feet on skin-tight trousers and you get a picture of two sausages walking!). At times the praise and worship leaders burst into song… ‘there is something today in the house of the Lord…’ I one day had difficulty ministering since one particular sister came wearing a perfume that kept the congregation sneezing!
A certain lady, I remember, was asked by the elders in the church to move to an opposite pew simply because she was exposing herself nude to the amazement of the elders and the pulpit! I depict such deplorable sights! It is quite a shame for such women in most cases present themselves even without their ‘linen’. others still expose their breasts so that the congregation can see ‘raised standards!’ It is also a big shame for elders who encourage men to put on earrings, bangles in the name of ‘fashion’ and ‘excellence.’ The wise do not need to see men wearing earrings to know who the gay really are!
Do you realize that some Christians never bother about their utterances? They speak anyhow, even in the pulpit. It is time that we as saints tame our tongues over what we speak. Men of God ought to discipline their characters so as to preach Christ to the great cloud of witnesses around. There is no occasion in the Bible where we see Jesus Christ unhygienic, abusive or uncouth. We should recall that Samson was anointed yet he lacked character. However anointed we may be, these ‘dead flies’ can spoil the anointing that the Lord has poured upon us. Let us be modest and keep these flies off the Lord’s sacrifice. Abraham kept birds away so that they do not contaminate the Lord’s sacrifice (Genesis 15:11).
Dear friend, let us in our utterances reflect Christ, in our dressing and general behavior be acceptable before the Lord. Let us take great care on how we present ourselves even before the table during meals. Its true we come from different societies and communities but when we get saved, we become a one tribe, one language, one color, one character, one race etc. We should therefore act in this newness of character by ‘sharpening’ one another, so that as we sing praises to Him, as we worship Him, as we witness to non-believers, they may see Christ in us and desire to be part in this kingdom.
